Gov. Josh Green plans to announce details of a new “recovery and humanitarian fund” for families that lost loved ones or were injured in the Aug. 8 Lahaina wildfire.

“Expect significant announcements from me in early November about funds for families who have lost a loved one or for individuals who were hurt in the fire physically,” Green said at a wide-ranging news conference Wednesday on Maui, joined by Maui Mayor Richard Bissen and officials from the American Red Cross and Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“We are putting together a coalition to get them resources, hopefully in a much more expedited way, so that they don’t have to wait for a long period of litigation,” Green said. “We know that there are going to need to be settlements, there have been tragedies. We want to be compassionate. So we will look at this as a recovery and humanitarian fund for those who suffered the greatest.”

Green plans to meet with President Joe Biden at the White House next week, along with meetings with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Hawaii’s congressional delegation.

Officials on Wednesday also talked about ongoing efforts — and challenges — finding more permanent housing, kitchens, parking and laundry facilities for the 6,879 fire evacuees remaining in Maui hotels and “hundreds in Airbnbs” on an island that already needed more housing before the fires, Green said.

“We’re making a lot of progress, but it is going to be a very long process,” Green said.

Gail McGovern, CEO and president of the American Red Cross, continued to reassure evacuees in hotels — mostly in Kaanapali — that they can remain indefinitely until they’re relocated to more comfortable accommodations.

“We are not asking anyone to leave until we find a permanent housing solution,” McGovern said. “So people are staying in those hotels. We’re not kicking people out. … We’re the Red Cross. We don’t do things like that.”

The Red Cross already has hired workers from Maui to help evacuees.

“They know the community, they know the streets, they have cultural sensitivity,” McGovern said.

FEMA has offered rental subsidies of 175% of fair market rate value to help evacuees relocate because “we know it’s a difficult rental market here,” said Bob Fenton, FEMA’s regional administrator.

FEMA already has provided rental assistance to nearly 3,300 people and extensions of an additional six months are available, he said. Discussions are underway to offer 18-month extensions, he said.

“We want to help individuals as much as possible. … We’d like to see you spend the next two Christmases in the same place,” Fenton said.

Bissen acknowledged “anxiety, the uncertainty” over housing and continued to implore “family, friends, co-workers” on Maui and across the state to take in evacuees, which makes them eligible for up to $1,500 a month, retroactive to Aug. 8.

It even applies to people on other islands who take in evacuees who find work outside of Maui.

Bissen also asked Maui landlords to convert short-term rentals to longer-term housing.

Short-term rentals are taxed at a higher rate, Bissen said.

He and Green are work­­ing with the Legislature in “finding a way around our issue of the short-term rentals that we have,” Bissen said. “We’re trying to incentivize folks … but we’re appealing to people’s conscience to see if they will do what we think is the right thing to help someone if you have a vacant unit and you know there’s a family that can use it. We’re asking nicely and we’re also offering a financial incentive.”

Modular units are also being considered for short- and long-term needs after the fires, but Bissen said they need to be located in areas where infrastructure for the units makes sense once the units are no longer needed.

Green said that officials “anguished” on Saturday over whether to delay the phased reopening of Lahainaluna High, Lahaina Intermediate and Princess Nahi­enaena Elementary schools in Lahaina after the state Department of Health reported that ash from the Kula fire contained unsafe levels of arsenic, lead and cobalt.

Arsenic — the main concern — has not been detected in water or near schools, Green said, “but we still have to be careful.”

Especially in elementary schools, children play in the dirt and often put it in their mouths, Green said.

Soil samples will be taken twice a week and “we’re going to keep testing perpetually,” Green said.

Fenton said Kula’s contaminated soil samples were “very much in line with other fires. This is what we expected.”

Asked about a potential landfill for nontoxic debris, Bissen said members of the community want it on Maui because it may contain victims’ remains. He emphasized that it would not be used as a general landfill for anything other than Lahaina debris.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday separately announced that the first of two phases of work to remove hazardous materials from Lahaina was more than 75% complete.

The second phase will remove all debris, overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

EPA said its work removing hazardous materials and application of a soil stabilizer to reduce the risk of spreading ash has been overseen by cultural monitors.

“The application of soil stabilizer will help reduce mobility of the toxic ash that could impact people’s health and the environment if it spreads to surrounding properties and water,” EPA said in a news release.

EPA is working with the county to dispose of lithium-ion batteries from electric and hybrid vehicles destroyed in the fires.