LAHAINA, Hawaii — Josephine Fraser feared that her young family would be living in a tent in the future.
Fraser and her partner, their two sons and their dog had moved nine times in as many months, from one hotel room to another, since the deadliest wildfire in US in a century, their hometown of Lahaina, Maui, was razed to the ground. Sometimes they were given only 24 hours to move, without knowing exactly where they were going.
The Red Cross warned that the hotel shelter program would end soon and Fraser struggled to explain to her 3-year-old daughter why they couldn’t just go home.
“He kept asking, ‘Why?’” she said. “It really broke me.”
Like Fraser, thousands of people on Maui have been dealing with anxious uncertainty since the forest fire of August 8, 2023 apocalyptic scenes of destruction of Lahaina, the historic former capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, forcing some survivors to flee into the ocean. The fire killed at least 102 people and 12,000 people displaced.
The government and nonprofits have offered temporary solutions for displaced residents, such as providing hotel rooms, renting apartments, assembling prefabricated houses and paying people to host their loved ones.
Disaster housing experts say the effort, expected to cost more than $500 million over two years, is unprecedented in the collaboration of federal, state, regional and charitable organizations to keep the community together.
But on an island that relies on tourism and where affordable housing was already scarce before the fire, there is a housing market squeezed out by holiday homes undermines efforts to provide long-term shelter to survivors even a year later.
Nearly all of the 8,000 survivors who were staying in hotels have moved to other accommodations. However, many of these accommodations are expensive apartments that were previously rented to visitors. And they are not close to residents’ jobs or their children’s schools.
Work to complete the development of temporary housing has been delayed due to the difficulty of cleaning up toxic wasteobtaining materials from thousands of miles away, blasting and leveling volcanic rock, and installing water, sewer and electricity lines.
Members of at least 1,500 households have already left for other islands or states, some estimates say. Locals fear more will leave if they can’t find stable, affordable, convenient housing.
This is especially painful for Hawaii, where leaders have been worried for a long time the islands are losing their culture as housing costs fuel an exodus of native Hawaiians and other residents born in the area.
“You start to change the fabric of Hawaii,” said Kuhio Lewis, executive director of the nonprofit Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, which works to house survivors. “That’s what’s at stake, the future of who Hawaii is.”
Gov. Josh Green told The Associated Press in an interview that the state is building transitional and long-term housing, changing laws to convert 7,000 vacation homes to long-term rentals and quickly settling lawsuits from fire survivors so plaintiffs can get the money they need to start rebuilding.
“Will people leave? Of course,” Green said. “But most of them will stay, and they will really be able to stay if they get their settlements and can invest in their new homes.”
The claimants and the state reached an agreement $4 Billion Global Settlement on Friday, according to court documents.
The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement is building 16 modular units in Lahaina and 50 in Kahului, about an hour away, which meant Fraser and her family didn’t end up in a tent. In May, they moved into the first unit completed in Kahului, a small, white building with two bedrooms and one bath.
The neighborhood remains a dusty construction site. The location is inconvenient for her job as a manager at a hotel restaurant in Lahaina, but Fraser, 22, is grateful. She can cook for her children and they can play outside.
“Everybody is choosing to leave Lahaina, to move off the island, to move to the mainland, and that’s not something we want to do,” she said. “Lahaina is our home.”
Lahaina’s plight raises an important question, as man-made climate change increases the severity and frequency of natural disasters: How far should governments go to keep communities together after such disasters?
Shannon Van Zandt, of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center in Texas A&M University, said it is a noble cause. Being part of a community that supports its members is not only important for their livelihoods, but also for their mental health, she said.
Jennifer Gray Thompson, CEO of the disaster recovery nonprofit After The Fire, says she’s worked in 18 counties that have suffered massive wildfires since 2017, including one that raged through Northern California’s wine country.
Thompson said she’s never seen the Federal Emergency Management Agency invest so heavily in keeping a community together.
“Maui is the first island where I’ve ever seen the federal government fully listen to the community … and actually try to do what they’re asking, which is keep people on the island,” she said.
FEMA has focused on providing rental housing for survivors who did not have insurance for fire losses. The agency rents homes directly to more than 1,200 households and provides subsidies to 500 others to occupy them independently. Many of the rental homes are in Kihei, 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Lahaina.
However, this approach proves difficult, partly because holiday homes and timeshares account for a quarter of the housing supply.
In October, FEMA raised its rates by 75% to entice landlords to rent to locals. The agency now pays $3,000 a month for a one-bedroom and more than $5,100 for a three-bedroom. People looking for housing on their own say this has further inflated the rental market.
Frustration about the prevalence of vacation homes after the fire prompted Maui’s mayor to propose they eliminate in areas designated for apartments. The measure is still under consideration.
FEMA is also building 169 modular homes next to a similar site being built in Lahaina by the state and the Hawaii Community Foundation. Residents will begin moving into FEMA’s development in October. The $115 million project next door will provide 450 homes for people who don’t qualify for FEMA; the first families are set to arrive in the coming weeks. Residents will begin moving into FEMA’s development in October.
Bob Fenton, FEMA’s regional director, told AP that the agency is even paying for the costs for survivors to temporarily live elsewhere and return when housing is ready.
“Our goal is the community’s goal,” Fenton said. “We’ve tried to do everything we can to support that.”
Lucy Reardon lost the home her grandfather had left her and her brother. As July rolled around, she was still living in a hotel with her partner and two children. She twice turned down offers from FEMA to temporarily leave the island and give her a car, she said, because her grandfather had wanted her to stay.
Eventually, the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement moved her and her family to a two-bedroom apartment in West Maui, in the same building as her brother and his family.
“Getting that phone call was like someone passing out light,” Reardon said. Her daughter will be able to attend preschool with her cousins at the school she attended before the fire.
The council also pays people who take in displaced loved ones, giving them $500 a month per guest. That’s come in handy for Tamara Akiona, who bought a small condo in central Maui with her husband after losing the multigenerational home she lived in with 10 relatives in Lahaina. The money has been used for food and other expenses since they took in her uncle, Ron Sambrano.
“Without my family, I would probably be living on the beach or under a bridge or something,” Sambrano said.
With stable housing, Fraser’s family can get back into a routine. She works during the day while her partner watches their sons. She returns to make dinner and bathe before he leaves for his night shift as a restaurant waitress.
“It’s great to have a roof, a place to call home,” Fraser said. “At least for now, until we go back to Lahaina.”
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McAvoy reported from Honolulu. Freelance journalist Mengshin Lin provided drone video for this story.
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