Historic Lahaina has been absolutely destroyed.
It was reported earlier this year that more than 5,000 victims of last year’s wildfires on Maui were staying in hotels as part of a temporary solution for displaced residents. The hotel rooms were being reserved for victims while some of the island’s short-term vacation rental properties were being prepared to house them in the interim of rebuilding efforts. Taxpayer funds, of course, have been set aside in order to make this all possible with FEMA paying as much as $1,000 per day for the temporary hotel stays and over $5,000 per month to secure the vacation houses.
According to new reporting by Hawaii News Now, between 600 and 700 of the original 1,361 vacation rentals are still vacant today.
“They’re doing the best they can, but there’s been a lot of, let’s put it, wastefulness,” admitted Kim Ball, one business owner on Mayor Richard Bissen’s Lahaina advisory team.
The new information reported by Hawaii News Now sheds light on the bottlenecks and challenges facing FEMA in its effort to get wildfire victims into new housing but also paints a picture of the stress and worry still facing people who were displaced. FEMA, of course, needs to conduct background checks on anybody applying for housing. There were more than 2,000 homes lost in the August fire and more than 7,000 residents initially left homeless in wake of the disaster. Hawaii’s Governor Josh Green attempted to issue a temporary moratorium converting some of the island’s 27,000 short-term rentals into long-term housing for fire survivors but that effort fell short.
Meanwhile, for the fire victims hoping to get assistance from FEMA, the timeline for moving from their temporary hotel stays and into the reserved vacation rentals has been anything but consistent. Maui’s Charles Nahale was told back in January he’d been given approval for a one-bedroom apartment and was given a three-week estimate for the remaining background checks and inspections on the property. He ended up waiting nearly two months before he was finally able to move in and when he arrived, the one-bedroom he was promised turned out to be a studio. Technically, applicants are allowed to refuse an initial offer as many as four times, but Nahale told Hawaii News Now he felt pressured to accept the studio.
“They were really giving me the sense that if you don’t take this one, we’re not promising we’re going to help you, more than likely you’ll be kicked out of the program,” he said. “So I didn’t want that to happen.”
