Congress required the Department of Defense (DoD) to report on Hawaii’s military housing and the effects military usage of private housing units has on the islands, with good reason: Hawaii was due a thorough examination of the issue. Instead, the DoD delivered a throwaway briefing: eight pages long, with nary a productive recommendation to be found.

That’s an insult to the people of Hawaii, and to Hawaii’s U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda, who sits on the Armed Services Committee and requested the analysis. Housing is at the top of Hawaii’s crises, along with cost of living, as Tuesday’s State of the State address by Gov. Josh Green makes clear.

The perfunctory report includes enough information to infer the importance of the issue: a substantial 14% of all rentals on Oahu go toward housing military personnel, it reveals. Beyond that, however, the military’s response is indeed unsatisfying, as it failed to deliver productive recommendations — “real solutions,” as Tokuda expected — to address DoD’s responsibility to provide housing for its personnel and to ensure that military rentals on the private market do not unduly deprive Hawaii residents of access to homes.

One known factor is that many military personnel receive generous housing allowances, and therefore can outbid working families for units. Another is that there is not enough housing available on military property for all of its personnel. As a result, thousands of rental units that might otherwise be available to locals are retained by military households. That’s a chronic factor in our housing shortage, and must be addressed.

As it stands, about 40% of service members on Oahu live off base, and most are renters, the report states — taking up about 14,700 of the approximately 106,000 private rental units on this island.

The report includes a “cost-benefit analysis” that estimates the cost of building 13,600 units at $10.8 billion, a clearly unrealistic spend — but a figure that makes clear just how valuable private housing is to the military. Further, with security in the Pacific region a DoD priority, Hawaii is all the more valuable. Military policy on housing here should reflect this.

There are obvious steps the military could take to fulfill its housing obligations. One is to consider providing land and subsidies for additional housing. Another is to ensure that property being provided is suitable, or remediated to be suitable for development. It’s irresponsible to walk away from properties otherwise, as the Navy did in Kalaeloa, which was handed over to the state with inadequate, outdated infrastructure.

State government should be able to see the military as a partner in stewardship of land under or once under military control, open to joint efforts to find solutions. This failure to show good faith should very much concern the state as negotiations over areas with expiring military leases loom, as this provides Hawaii with an unprecedented opportunity to press its case on these issues.

The report, and Tokuda’s fellow U.S. Rep. Ed Case, note that another too-large portion of Oahu’s rental supply has been taken over by short-term rentals (STRs), which produce profits for owners that dwarf military and local renters’ budgets alike. This is true — but does not justify DoD’s failure to consider remedies, and Case is wrong to use that data to deflect DoD’s responsibility.

Honolulu’s city government is taking aggressive action on STRs, which on a statewide basis take up 75,000 of housing units not legally allowed as STRs. But Honolulu’s ability to affect military policy on housing is dependent on military cooperation. This report indicates that cooperation isn’t forthcoming — and that’s simply wrong. The military can, and should, be at the table to help produce more and better options to house its service members here.