Stark figures from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) latest Point-in-Time (PIT) count reveal a whopping 87% increase in Hawaii homelessness between 2023 and 2024, with primary blame laid on the Aug. 8, 2023, Maui wildfires. HUD’s numbers, provided by the Continuums of Care (CoC) program in January 2024, reconfirm what has been widely known for well over a year: Many Lahaina fire survivors are still without a home. They must also serve as a splash of cold water for lawmakers and stakeholders to redouble efforts to immediately begin a conscientious rebuilding process, house displaced residents and march quickly down a road to recovery.
Statewide, a total of 11,637 people were recorded as homeless at the time of HUD’s PIT count, up from 6,223 a year earlier. Some 3,420 households and 6,975 people lived in emergency shelters as of January 2024, a monstrous increase from 1,031 families and 1,659 people counted in 2023. By comparison, Honolulu’s CoC program saw a decrease in recorded homeless households living in emergency shelters, from 758 to 747, and moderate increases in both sheltered and unsheltered homeless individuals. HUD divides Hawaii into two CoC regions, one covering Honolulu and another for the rest of the state.
Homelessness is also on the rise nationwide, with nearly all populations hitting record highs at the time of last year’s PIT count. To counter the dilemma, the Biden administration rolled out a number of initiatives including projects that seek to increase collaboration between housing and health care services, convert unused federal properties into housing and allocate funding to support at-risk groups such as veterans, youth and survivors of violence.
Hawaii’s share of HUD funding throughout 2024 included: $18.7 million in homelessness assistance money issued through the CoC program; $48.6 million in Emergency Solutions Grants; and $6.6 million under the Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing (PRO Housing) program. This is in addition to Maui-targeted efforts such as Rapid Unsheltered Survivor Housing program funds, which flowed rounds of money into disaster-stricken Lahaina as a complement to federal disaster relief programs.
Some good news from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for Maui wildfire survivors: Assistance for financial and direct temporary housing support has been extended for another 12 months and will be active through Feb. 10, 2026. In November, the first residents moved in to FEMA’s Kilohana Temporary Group Housing Site, consisting of 167 modular units, with more expected in this year. And FEMA will continue support of its direct housing program, under which 1,139 households currently live in direct lease housing.
Meanwhile, the state Office of Resiliency and Recovery announced an application deadline of Wednesday for the Hawaii Interim Housing Program, which offers temporary housing to those impacted by the Maui wildfires. Applications for the state-funded initiative opened in July; it currently provides for more than 300 families.
State leaders must continue to chase every dollar available, and there are opportunities to be had. HUD’s CoC Competition provides more than $3.5 billion in competitive funding annually to homeless services organizations, while CoC Builds offers $175 million in permanent supportive housing.
As federal and state agencies work to keep temporary shelter over the heads of Maui survivors, more must be done to shift to permanent solutions. A significant boost came last month, when Congress approved about $1.6 billion in Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds for Maui housing.
Equally necessary is a path to fast-track safe reentry into cleared areas within the Lahaina burn zone, disposing of bureaucratic red tape when possible and offering affordable options to residents at all turns. It is time to take Lahaina’s survivors home.
