Last August, Mikey Burke, a fourth-generation Lahainan and Native Hawaiian, lost her home to the Maui wildfires. Since her rental assistance ended two months ago, the costs of rebuilding for her family of six are prohibitive. Additionally, she was turned down when she attempted to obtain an extension. Additionally, she wasn’t eligible for FEMA assistance until her rent was due.
After exhausting all available resources, longtime inhabitants of Lahaina find themselves at a rare crossroads: either leave the only place they have ever known or find a way to stay, which seems impossible.
After spending the first several months after the fire submitting claims and being moved into hotels, many Lahaina homeowners found that their insurance coverage for rental assistance stopped in October.
They are currently experiencing a triple burden of increasing rents, expiring financial aid, and an insurance gap that has prevented them from covering the expense of reconstruction.
According to Kukui Keahi, a fire survivor and the community care lead for the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement’s Maui rehabilitation program, “a few months ago, we all felt like we were finally at that we can breathe phase.” I believe we’ve returned to this rocky spot.
Burke is among several Lahaina homeowners who had hoped that insurance companies would extend their additional living expense (ALE) and loss of use (LOU) benefits beyond a year, as they had done following wildfires in other states, but they did not. Homeowners must use up all of their LOU and ALE insurance, which pay for rental expenses in the event of a disaster that renders their home uninhabitable, before they may seek for rental assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Burke claimed that although she applied as soon as she was eligible, the approval process took two months, and the amount was determined by her mortgage rather than the exorbitant rental prices of the time.
The wait time between submitting an application for relief and getting it approved, according to FEMA Regional Administrator Bob Fenton, is frequently related to submitting the appropriate documentation and can be as little as 24 to 48 hours or take a long time. According to FEMA, about half of the legitimate and referred Maui survivors who applied for assistance were granted it.
Burke claimed that she made numerous unsuccessful attempts to get help, including negotiating her rent with her landlord. She claimed it was the first time she had thought of leaving her hometown because she was stuck paying $7,600 in rent and $3,100 for her mortgage.
“It was only a moment,” she remarked. Sometimes, though, people only need that one moment to decide what to do.
A crisis of rising rents
Moving fire survivors from hotels and shelters to more stable housing has been a priority for the federal government over the past year. FEMA’s housing programs essentially give preference to people who had been renting previous to the fires because homeowners who receive LOU or ALE benefits, which are typical in most homeowners insurance policies, are not eligible for FEMA assistance.
According to Maui County Councilmember Tamara Paltin, many people believe there is a difference between those who are homeowners and those who were formerly tenants. Some people believe that homeowners did not receive as much assistance from the federal government as renters did.
According to Fenton, FEMA gives everyone the assistance that they are legally entitled to through laws and regulations. According to him, people with insurance are most likely in a far better position than those without.
Burke and other homeowners don’t agree. Now that their LOU and ALE coverage has expired, they must manage the rebuilding process and the expenses of permits, architectural designs, contractors, and materials on a resource-constrained island while paying their rent, mortgage, and occasionally homeowners association dues.
Maui rents, meantime, have increased dramatically. FEMA paid the market rate for vacation rentals and placed many survivors in short-term rentals in the early aftermath of the fire. According to a University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization survey published last month, survivors, whether or not they received FEMA aid, now pay 43% to 80% more rent for a home with the same or fewer bedrooms as before that cost surge.
According to Burke, homeowners like herself are compelled to think about using their rebuilding funds to cover their rent. “We have less money to build the longer we have to rent,” she remarked. Additionally, homeowners may not be allowed to develop at all if it persists for a long enough period of time. It’s nearly as if you have to decide between dwelling now and later.
According to the UHERO study, over half of survivors have had to leave West Maui after the fires, and almost a tenth of them have moved to the continental United States or abroad. Data researchers and community leaders question whether they will, even though one-third stated they intend to return within the next year.
The migration from Lahaina serves as an example of what is occurring with Native Hawaiians throughout the state. According to data from the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, as of 2022, around 25% of all Native Hawaiians who were born in Hawaii had emigrated to the mainland. Native Hawaiians now reside in the continental United States in greater numbers than in Hawaii.
According to data researcher Matt Jachowski, who put together the data for the council, what happens is that people just hang on as long as they can before breaking. You hear, “Oh, I’ll make more money if I move to Texas, Vegas, or Washington.” Better housing will be provided for me.
Bert Noury and his spouse chose to enroll in FEMA’s relocation program since their Native Hawaiian family has a long history in Lahaina. He accepted a work relocation to Orlando, Florida, since he was tired of moving from temporary accommodation to temporary housing. However, he claimed that FEMA is late on their rent, so they are not living in more security. (Fenton claimed that Noury has not given FEMA the required paperwork; Noury stated that he has repeatedly resubmitted their data.) He hopes the homeowners association will rebuild in the next five years, so he keeps paying his dues for their Lahaina townhouse.
He stated, “I want to go back home, but we’ve been using every single dollar we’ve saved over the years to give our family a roof and stability.” I want to live at home and start saving money again.
Impossible to rebuild
This September, Earle Kukahiko’s ALE benefits also ended. He, his wife, their grown children, and their cousin have been residing at his sister’s house in Lahaina, one of many families that have occupied a property for numerous generations. Outside, Kukahiko sleeps in tents with his son. More than 1,500 people applied for the 450 temporary dwellings the state erected, and he recently learned that he was accepted.
In an attempt to expedite the process of rebuilding, Kukahiko, 67, employed a draftsman to create architectural blueprints in order to obtain his building permit, which can cost anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000. He is not waiting to return to his ina or land in the interim. He spends his days caring for the grasses in his yard that he has picked up off the roadside and replanted. A stone mound with red and yellow ti leaves, preserved from his father’s plantings decades ago, sits in the middle.
“Wow, this is the first time we’ve seen someone take care of the yard before you even have a house,” Kukahiko commented as people passed by. Additionally, I’ve always believed that I need to get ina instead of hale (home).
Seventh-generation Lahainan and Native Hawaiian carpenter Jeremy DelosReyes is similarly enmeshed in the red tape of reconstruction. Although construction was scheduled to begin in July, the Environmental Protection Agency discovered that his water was tainted and that his block’s electrical lines were disconnected. He claims that building his house will cost more than $1 million due to rising construction costs, and his insurance only paid $410,000.
I am capable of building my own home. I can build my house for $400,000, he replied, but it would require me to ask everyone I know for favors, and I would be indebted to them for the rest of my life.
Community help
Nonprofits and community organizations have stepped up to help survivors with the financial shortages. Burke is one of the leaders of the recently established Lahaina Community Land Trust, which is developing an insurance gap program to assist homeowners in covering the expenses between insurance settlements and reconstruction. Although helping families stay is the trust’s primary objective, if a resident decides to sell their land, the trust will offer to buy it at fair market value, build a house on it, and then sell the house at a reasonable price using a lottery system that gives preference to Lahaina residents.
We have an innate bond with this place and its people, and many of us struggle with questions like, “What should I do with this?” Burke stated. I initially used [putting myself into my community] as a coping strategy, but it also soon became the most instinctive thing in the world. It became my kuleana.
Kuleana, or the Hawaiian notion of one s responsibility to the land and community, is what keeps other Native Hawaiians in Lahaina pushing through, they say. DelosReyes has startedKai ulu Initiatives, where community members can reconnect with the ina by planting native plants on an area overrun with the types of invasive grasses that fueled the wildfires. Kukahiko now serves on the mayor s advisory team as a liaison to the community.
Keahi said it s her biggest honor to give back to the community that raised me, as she helps residents navigate not just FEMA bureaucracy and unemployment, but also the programs the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement offers, like rental placement and temporary housing. But she worries about the longevity of recovery programs, as there is no shortage of disasters capturing funders attention across the county. Then there are concerns that FEMA funding may be reduced by the resurgent Trump administration.
The Lahaina Community Land Trust understands that funding is an uphill battle, but it has slowly been making gains. Last month, the trust acquired its first property the sellers, who weren t originally from Hawaii, wanted the property to stay in community hands and is in the process of acquiring a second. When Burke and the trust s founders went out to celebrate the sale over dinner, they noticed a local family commemorating an event of their own: their last dinner in Lahaina. They were moving away that night.
That was crushing, said Carolyn Auweloa, a co-founder of the trust. It s what we know is going to happen. But it s one thing for people to have to leave for a little while. What s scary is some of them are leaving and don t really have a clear path to come back. They ll be displaced and then replaced with who?
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