Hawaii fire survivors moving into housing but 3,000 still in hotels

Hawaii Governor Josh Green said 3,000 people displaced by wildfires in Lahaina are still living in hotels more than seven months after the blaze, but up to 30 people are moving to longer-term housing each day.

Mr Green told a news conference the state and federal government have lined up sufficient long-term rental units to shelter everyone currently in one of 11 hotels still housing survivors.

State and federal governments are also building modular transitional housing units for displaced residents and Mr Green everyone to leave the hotels by July 1.

Nearly 8,000 Lahaina residents were living in 40 hotels in the days immediately after the fire.

Maui has a severe housing shortage. In West Maui, much of the existing housing has been used as vacation rentals for tourists.

In December, Mr Green threatened to use the “hammer” of emergency orders to impose a moratorium on Maui short-term rentals if enough property owners didn’t make their units available to Lahaina residents.

But on Wednesday he said such a moratorium won’t be necessary.

He said the state has contracts for 1,300 units and that the number of households in hotels has dropped to under 1,300.

One issue now, Mr Green said, is that many available rentals are not in West Maui, and some Lahaina residents have refused them because they want to stay near their jobs and their children’s schools.

“A lot of people have been offered an apartment, housing, and have rejected it because it’s too far away from West Maui, or it didn’t suit their family circumstance,” Mr Green said.

Mr Green said people are being given four opportunities to accept housing that is offered and two chances to appeal an option provided.

He said some people have rejected housing up to six times.

“Once that transitional housing comes online, honestly, people will have to go move into those if they haven’t left the hotels yet because it’s only fair,” Mr Green said.

“We need the resources so that we can build the next school so that we can rebuild clinics that were lost during the fire.”

The fire destroyed 3,971 properties and caused between four and six billion dollars (£3.2-4.8 million) in property damage.

Of these properties, 561 were occupied by homeowners. Mr Green said one-quarter of these lots have already been cleared of debris.

“That means they’re going to get permits sometime later this year to begin to rebuild back in Lahaina,” Mr Green said, acknowledging that water, sewer, and electricity services must be restored to these lots.