Since the last mayoral election in 2018, the typical price of a Maui home has soared to $1.15 million, a nearly $440,000 increase driven in part by a flood of out-of-state buyers who flocked to the islands during the pandemic. Unless something changes, many residents fear the diaspora of Maui’s generational families will continue, disrupting the fabric of the community.

“What we have now is a market system … the highest bidder gets the housing,” said Stan Franco of Stand Up Maui, a nonprofit that advocates for affordable housing. “And if we continue doing that, we will continue to lose our people just because they cannot afford to live here.”

Maui’s current housing crisis is decades in the making. But the situation spiraled out of control in 2020, when more than a third of the island’s workers lost jobs after the pandemic struck. That same year, 70% of homes sold on Maui went to owners who didn’t plan to live in them full time, such as investors and vacation homeowners, an analysis by a Hawai’i Appleseed researcher found.

Since then, the Maui County Council made drastic changes in hopes of spurring more affordable housing, including by raising taxes on investment homes and vacation rentals to put a total of $58 million into the county’s affordable housing fund. But the council members just control the purse strings and make county laws; it’s the mayor—and the county administration as a whole—who are responsible for turning that policy and money into action.

“We need the political will to do this,” said Franco.