Their plight has been hidden because data on native Hawaiian housing needs were incomplete, Inouye said. New studies bear "astonishing findings and statistics - findings which are shocking even to those who may consider themselves well-informed on these maters," he said.

"We now know that native Hawaiians have a more severe need for housing than any other group in the United States, including American Indians and Alaska natives," Hawaii's senior senator said.

Inouye, ranking Democrat on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, presided over a committee hearing on the housing issue in Honolulu yesterday. He was joined by only two fellow Hawaii Democrats, Sen. Daniel Akaka and Rep. Neil Abercrombie.

The panel discussed studies by the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute, the National Commission on American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Housing, and the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

Among the findings:

• Nearly half of Hawaiian households - and 67 percent of those on the waiting list for Hawaiian Home lands - experience housing problems related to affordability, overcrowding or structural inadequacy. That compares with 44 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives living on tribal lands and 27 percent of all U.S. households.

• In 1992, 49 percent of Hawaiian Home Lands applicants lived in overcrowded conditions compared with 37 percent of all Hawaiian households and 21 percent of non-Hawaiian households.

• Twenty-eight percent of Hawaiian households put more than 30 percent of income toward housing, compared with 22 percent of non-Hawaiians.

• The rate of homelessness among Hawaiians, at 12.2 "households" per 1,000, is double that of non-Hawaiians.

Dannemiller blamed a high unemployment rate among Hawaiians and a general poverty for much of the problem.

But unlike American Indians and Alaska natives, native Hawaiians as a group cannot qualify for funding under housing and infrastructure programs administered by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, Inouye said.

He said a HUD reform bill he expects will pass in Congress this summer will provide millions of dollars in community block grants to Indian and Eskimo tribes, but not to Hawaiians.

Hawaiians have been unable to qualify because they lack the same trust relationship with the federal government as Indian and Eskimo tribes, said Gordan Furutani, the department's state coordinator. Thus, in the traditional view of the U.S. Department of Justice - a view Furutani said he does not share - targeting housing grants and loans specifically at Hawaiians would amount to giving them preferences over other racial or ethnic groups, he said.

Abercrombie blasted "'Alice in Wonderland' thinking."

"It seems to me what the Department of Justice is doing is closing its eyes to the question of need . . . simply because they haven't found justification for that in one of the esoteric legal searches that they've made," he said.

Furutani said the department will ask for a legal opinion from the Justice Department that would allow greater flexibility for Hawaiians to use HUD programs. The department also will create a task force to work on the Hawaiian housing question, he said.

Hawaiian Homes Commission Chairman Kali Watson said it would be improper to suggest the federal government has abandoned Hawaiians, noting that the Federal Housing Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs have provided about $60 million in loans for housing construction on Hawaiian Home lands. He added that HUD gave $5.8 million in "special purpose" community development grants.

But he said that falls far short of the estimated $2 billion that it would take to provide homes for more than 28,000 Hawaiians.