U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda led Hawaii’s Congressional delegation to jointly encourage the Federal Emergency Management Agency today to halt its plans to require Maui wildfire survivors to begin paying market-rate rental prices starting Saturday.

About 30 percent of survivor households live below the poverty line in West Maui, where landlords continue to drive up rents following the August 2023 wildfires that destroyed nearly 4,000 structures, most of them homes.

Many continue to be unemployed, according to the letter written today to FEMA Region 9 Director Bob Fenton.

Tokuda told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that FEMA has not yet replied.

The request to maintain FEMA-subsidized housing — based on income levels — does not affect landlords’ rental income, Tokuda said.

And the request follows a similar extension of FEMA subsidized housing for victims of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, Tokuda said.

“It’s very similar to Katrina,” she said.

Forcing financially struggling wildfire survivors to suddenly pay skyrocketing Maui rental prices will cause “people to make extreme choices,” including “crowding into homes they maybe cannot afford” or leaving their beloved West Maui altogether and possibly relocate to the mainland, Tokuda told the Star-Advertiser.

According to the letter to FEMA, “These ongoing challenges have led to our greatest fear: that too many Maui residents have had to make the heartbreaking choice to permanently leave their homes and communities.

“Reports indicate that over 1,000 Maui residents have left the island, with about half of them leaving Hawai‘i entirely. For those who remain, the March 1 deadline presents a daunting financial cliff that could exacerbate existing challenges and further drive a growing exodus of our residents.”