They came from all walks of life to the state Capitol early Saturday, more than 220 strong, a throng of hotel workers, ministers, developers, politicians, retirees, young people — all drawn by a desire to do something about Hawaii’s housing crisis.

The daylong Housing Summit hosted byFaith Action for Community Equity zeroed in on how to produce and retain housing, especially rentals, that local people can afford.

In the crowd were people like Susan Sanger, a full-time lecturer at Leeward Community College, who is living with her parents at age 49 because she can’t afford her own place and she has student loans. And retiree Wally Inglis, whose daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren just moved to California because they couldn’t find a home to rent here.

James Fitzpatrick, 26, has seen so many of his peers leave the islands for good and "become tourists in our neighborhoods, visiting, like my older brother does at Christmas or Thanksgiving."

"Our current housing market is strangling the hope from the next generation of Hawaii’s leaders," said Fitzpatrick, a member of St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church who volunteers with FACE.

He kicked off the summit with opening remarks that laid out Honolulu’s "supply-and-demand dynamic that affects everyone, from the destitute houseless to the middle class."

"Developers are more than willing to build condos for an emerging global elite that pays well over $900,000 for a unit that they have no intention of living in," he said. "There is no way I can come up with that kind of money, let alone those on the margins of society, dealing with poverty, addiction and mental illness."

He added: "In a conventional market, building more housing would … drive down the price of housing. This won’t work in Hawaii because the demand is steady, even unlimited, and comes from outside the islands."

Mayor Kirk Caldwell, the keynote speaker, said the focus needs to shift to building housing for people earning up to 80 percent of Area Median Income, which in Honolulu is $53,700 for a single person, rather than well over the median, as has been the case in recent years.

Janitors earn about $25,000 a year, construction workers about $46,000 and firefighters about $53,000, according to the Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice.

"No one is building to that market," Caldwell said. "So where are kids going? They stay home with us. They’re doubling and tripling up. And they’re leaving.

"So we’ve become a place where people who have a lot of money can come and live here, and the people that we love, our children, our neighbors, our families, our friends are moving away," Caldwell said. "That breaks my heart. We’re losing our soul when that happens."

The mayor and other speakers in breakout sessions highlighted concrete steps to target housing to local residents who need it most. Along with aiming production to lower-income earners, housing units need to be kept affordable for 30 or 60 years or more, rather than reverting to market prices in a decade, they said.

One session focused on incentives for developers, which can range from subsidies and tax credits to higher densities or waivers of parking for downtown units near transit stations.

"I don’t blame the developer," Caldwell said. "They are building to a market where they can make money. We need to figure out how we can work with those developers. … Just passing a law doesn’t work. Maui had very aggressive standards and regulations, and the developers just didn’t build."

A popular suggestion was to allow homeowners to build a second, small unit on their property that could be rented to nonrelatives, similar to ohana zoning. A resolution on such "accessory dwelling units" introduced by City Councilman Ron Menor, who was at the summit, will be heard at the Council on Thursday.

There are 22,000 lots in older neighborhoods around the island that could qualify to do that, Caldwell said.

Micro-units were suggested as another solution, and the Hawaii Community Development Authority is considering such a development on a small lot on Cooke Street, said HCDA board member Brian Tamamoto. Preserving existing housing stock, such as Kukui Gardens and city-owned properties, is also vital, according to FACE.

Overall, the public and government need to commit more money and land to make low-cost housing a reality, advocates said.

"I don’t think we are going to solve this affordable housing crisis unless the city and the state put more skin in the game," said George Atta, director of the city’s Department of Planning and Permitting.

Only a few affordable rentals have been built in recent years. The Franciscan Vistas Ewa, a senior rental project completed in 2011, with 150 units renting for $500 to $700 a month, required substantial government support. It is limited to people earning from 30 percent to 60 percent of AMI, roughly $20,000 to $40,000 for a single person.

"You need free land and at least $100,000 per unit in subsidies" to build affordable rentals, said developer Stanford Carr. "That project would not have come about without $14 million from the Rental Housing Trust fund, augmented with federal and state tax credits."

He added: "The wait list on that is 1,000 names. That gives you a little taste of the demand, and that’s just in Ewa."

The Rev. David Gierlach of St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church saw hope in the diverse voices that came together for the summit.

"It does seem that our community has reached a place of critical mass," he said.

"In 1981, I visited Manila and it took me months to get over the shock of people living in cardboard boxes," he recalled. "To see that happening in downtown Honolulu and all across the state … it is astounding to me in the richest country on earth to have people living in those circumstances."