The ground is still hot Lahaina, the site of the Hawaii’s deadliest wildfire in over a century, but this historic town is already confronting another existential crisis: a dire and immediate housing shortage and a serious threat of long-term displacement.
in December, bringing optimism that future projects could also successfully navigate the island’s strict building codes and eventually help ease the crisis.Hawaii leads the United States in cost of living. A family of four making less than $93,000 here is considered low-income. And Maui County is one of the country’s most rent-burdened places, with more than half of renters spending upward of 30 percent of their income on housing. Around Lahaina, roughly half of residents rent.
“They are one of thousands of families, and this devastation is so deep because each home gone represents multiple families,” she said. “We don’t know how we will handle it long-term.”Rebuilding will be difficult, Crosby said, and she is encouraging longtime residents not to make any decisions about land sales now, during a time of deep desperation.
A key moment in this history came in 1893, when U.S.-backed insurrectionists overthrew Queen Lili‘uokalani and the Hawaiian Kingdom. The provisional government that took its place seized the kingdom’s land and eventually transferred it to the United States as part of the annexation of Hawaii — an episode for which the U.S. government would“We’re just mad that we became the second class of our own aina,” Kapu said, using the Hawaiian word for land.
“This is an opportunity for our government to step in and make right by the people who have been wronged for so long,” said Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, a Maui County Council member and Native Hawaiian who represents the nearby island of Moloka‘i. “This shouldn’t be a land grab.”Residents have described this precarious moment as a fork in the road for Lahaina. Venture down one path, and the town drifts further in the direction of luxury estates, vacation rentals and golf courses.
There was much talk of self-sufficiency, a mode everyone in the town was forced into when the unprecedented blaze overwhelmed authorities and services. Local musicians played guitar, the owner of a now-burned food truck assumed the role of chef, and volunteers doled out generators and pantry items. About 11:45, flames crept toward the house where Kalepa, the community leader, lives with his family. They singed his backyard. Neighbors and firefighters, who were toward the end of their most harrowing shift, used hoses from surrounding houses and doused the area, eventually stopping the burn.
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