The vast majority of housing in Hawaiʻi and throughout the United States is built by for-profit businesses, and now, with thousands of residents still displaced by the Lahaina fires, more nonprofit developers are urgently needed.

“If we’re going to adequately address the housing shortage for residents, then we need something in addition to the private market,” says Gavin Thornton, executive director of the Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice. “That’s why investing in those nonprofit developments, and removing the financial incentives, is so important,” Thornton continues. “It makes it less about being a smart financial investment and more about being a home for someone that needs it.”

This year, Hawaiʻi Community Lending, a community loan fund, introduced a new program aimed at increasing the number of nonprofit developments in the state, especially on Maui.

“We brought together nine different nonprofits who did a weeklong training with us,” says Jeff Gilbreath, executive director of Hawaiʻi Community Lending. These consisted of small to midsize nonprofit developers, some of whom already have a few completed projects but lack the staff or capacity to leverage larger dollars for affordable housing developments.