A mix of progress and missed opportunities: affordable housing efforts at the 2024 legislature
As Hawaiʻi continues to grapple with the complex dynamics of housing affordability and availability, it is clear that a more balanced approach that incorporates both supply- and demand-side measures, is essential.
Hawaiʻi’s elected leaders buy-in to costly “trickle-down” myth
Passing an “historic” tax cut that mostly benefits the wealthiest Hawaiʻi residents is not the path to a healthy economy that works for working people.
The big budget trouble with HB2404’s over-broad and sweeping tax cuts
Last minute changes to the bill, made without public scrutiny, will increase its cost by nearly eight-fold, while higher-income households will get a far bigger benefit than those struggling to make ends meet.
Hawaiʻi is even less affordable after the pandemic
How have jobs, wages and costs changed from before the COVID pandemic compared to after? These charts show changes from 2019 to 2022 that have affected livability for Hawaiʻi residents.
Leverage Hawaiʻi’s conveyance tax to equitably fund affordable housing, land conservation and infrastructure needs
The legislature has the opportunity this session to raise revenue to pay for much needed affordable housing—as well as land conservation and infrastructure—by increasing conveyance tax rates on investment properties.
Focusing in on people-first policy for the 2024 legislative session
Hawaiʻi Appleseed announces its legislative priorities for the 2024 session.
Hawaiʻi can increase housing stability through a rent relief & mediation program
Creating and funding an ongoing rent relief and pre-litigation mediation program will increase housing stability in Hawaiʻi.
What made the 2022 Hawaiʻi legislative session a win for working families?
After multiple years with little progress on policy to help working families survive Hawaiʻi’s highest-in-the-nation cost of living, several factors came together to deliver a banner year in 2022.
Community-driven progress on Hawaiʻi’s affordable housing crisis
The only to address Hawai‘i’s long-standing housing crisis is through a comprehensive, community- and data-driven approach designed not to just build more housing, but to build the housing that Hawaiʻi residents need and can afford.
Put more money in working people’s pockets and reduce housing costs
This legislative session, Hawaiʻi Appleseed is pushing hard to implement a significant minimum wage increase, expand successful tax credits for low-income families, and lay the groundwork for housing policy that will mean no one in Hawaiʻi is left unsheltered because of poverty.
Federal spending reduced overall poverty last year despite the pandemic-recession
But in Hawaiʻi, tens of thousands of residents below the poverty line still struggled to make ends meet.