On July 11, 2022, Gov. David Ige signed Act 279 into law, setting aside a historic $600 million for the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL). This being Hawaii, of course, legislators, homestead residents and would-be residents, activists and gadflies starting arguing over how the money should be spent before the ink went dry.

At stake: DHHL’s strategy to place 29,000 Hawaiians who languish on a wait list for leases for a home or property. The agency’s track record so far has been mediocre to dismal: Some Hawaiians have been kept waiting for more than 40 years; and last year, the state began paying out more than $300 million in damages to Hawaiians misserved by DHHL’s failure to use due diligence in granting homesteads between 1959 and 1998.

The current director of DHHL, Kali Watson, has an aggressive plan to turn the ship around. It includes adding multi-unit buildings, low-income housing options and quick-build modular homes to the home lands portfolio of ag land, subsistence homesteads and suburban-type tracts. It also includes obtaining state tax credits that can be offered to developers in lieu of cash, as well as federal funds earmarked for low-income or Native Hawaiian housing, infrastructure, climate-change mitigation, wastewater treatment or any other applicable need, to leverage or supplant state money so that DHHL produces even more housing.

This strategy, far more nimble and productive than any deployed by DHHL in years past, is the better path for Hawaii at this time, as thousands of Hawaiians languish on the homestead waitlist — and as need and funding for affordable housing from county, state and federal sources have surged.

DHHL’s plan is both solid and flexible, in that Watson’s approach is to seek out properties that can be rapidly readied for homesteads, pivot when necessary, and prioritize spending where it can produce more immediate results. DHHL has been making speedy progress by state government standards since Watson took over in 2023. Supporting the strategy and funding the staff and administrative improvements Watson says he needs to modernize DHHL would be a savvy investment in the state’s well-being.

The bottom line is that, in contrast to previous DHHL strategies, the agency under Watson is rapidly adding to the number of homesteads that can be offered. Last week, he informed the legislative committee monitoring DHHL’s progress on the $600 million appropriation that 28 parcels are in play. Once built out, they are projected to contain nearly 6,000 Hawaiian homes.

In March of this year, Gov. Josh Green reported that the $600 million awarded “would immediately unlock” development of 3,700 homes.

There have been complications along the way, such as a federal land transfer in Ewa that, it turns out, will be partly underwater if sea level rise reaches predicted levels, along with bureaucratic scuffles and delays. But Watson has been tenacious in pursuing his overarching goal: Placing as many homes in beneficiaries’ hands as possible, as quickly as possible.

Among the victories: DHHL’s Pu‘uhona homestead project, a 161-lot development in Waikapu, West Maui, for which 52 leases have been awarded. The project is Maui’s first turnkey housing development in 17 years.

Most recently, Watson has been working to get funding and approvals for the purchase of a Kauai apartment building that will be converted to leasehold homesteads. The intention is to offer eligible Hawaiians leases that preserve their interest in the building while they participate in a “rent-to-own” program designed to allow for residents to save for a mortgage — an innovative strategy that gives limited-income Hawaiians on the waiting list an opportunity unavailable under past plans.

One of Watson’s priorities is to preserve the ability of eligible waitlistees, who must be at least 50% Hawaiian, to pass down the interest in this housing to successors (i.e., children) who are at least 25% Hawaiian, by quickly awarding them “paper leases” that lock in their rights to pass the property on. Otherwise, these children of leaseholders would be shut out.

“We’ve got a lot of people dying on the waitlist, living in overcrowded conditions” he told members of the Hawaiian Homes Commission at its meeting last week, saying bluntly, “We’re trying to correct a very ineffective program that has existed for over 100 years.”

Although tenants of the Kauai apartment building protested DHHL’s takeover, the agency will provide relocation assistance, as it is required to do, and will offer subsidies to qualified tenants who must pay more at another rental.

It’s encouraging to see DHHL and Watson forging ahead to initiate projects and ready homesteads for transfer at a rate unmatched in the history of the agency. This tenacity and focus will be required statewide if Hawaii hopes to address its housing crisis, and DHHL’s approach can pave the way.