State addresses
housing crunch

Affordable shelter has become
hard to find even for
the middle class

HONOLULU » About 10 years ago, Barbara Chung found herself among Hawaii's homeless.

Unable to work because of a disability, and needing to find a place to live on a limited income, Chung discovered the high cost of paradise firsthand.

Today, thousands of others in Hawaii face the same thing: trying to find an affordable place to live in markets where most single-family homes sell for close to or more than $500,000.

Chung, 57, has since rebounded and today rents a modest apartment in Waipahu.

Last week, she went before a legislative committee to offer her ideas on how lawmakers could bring down the cost of homes and apartments to levels that people like herself can afford.

She suggested they focus immediate efforts on repairing and renovating existing apartment buildings and houses.

"Some just need minor repairs, others might need more major repairs," she said. "But if we have to wait for everything to be so beautiful and have brand-new refrigerators and really lovely walls and gardens and landscaped apartment houses, it's going to take years.

"People need it now."

It's people like Chung whom lawmakers and the Lingle administration want to hear from as they head into the 2005 legislative session with a common mission: to put more people in Hawaii into houses and apartments and shine light on a problem they say will ultimately hurt the state's economy.

"If you have a home and you don't have any children or you don't have any parents, you may not be aware of it," said state Sen. Gary Hooser (D, Kauai-Niihau), co-chairman of the legislative committee studying the affordable-housing issue.

But Hooser and others say they know of plenty of people who are living with two and sometimes three or four generations under the same roof because adult children and grandparents cannot afford to move out.

"We had a fellow testify on Maui. ... He had one child and grandchildren already living with him and another one who wanted to, but he had no place to put them," Hooser said.

While it might seem like a problem that only affects the poor, many middle-class renters have trouble finding apartments within their budgets.

Advocates say the lack of affordable housing will be everyone's problem sooner or later because businesses will be unable to find workers who can afford to live in the islands.

Hawaii's best and brightest students will continue going to colleges on the mainland and staying there, housing advocates say, if they cannot afford even a studio apartment, which can easily run $1,000 a month in Honolulu.

And the homeless population will only swell. According to Gov. Linda Lingle's office, there are about 6,000 homeless people in Hawaii, and nearly half of those, 45 percent, are on other islands besides Oahu.

"They want to work, they want to be independent, but they need housing first," said Lynn Maunakea, executive director at Oahu's only emergency shelter, the Institute for Human Services.

According to a 2003 survey by SMS Research of Honolulu, Hawaii needs about 17,000 affordable rental units and 13,000 single-family homes to serve the needs of mid- to low-income groups.

On Maui, for example, officials say 224 houses are needed annually for first-time home buyers earning 100 percent to 120 percent of the island's median annual income of $60,700. An additional 514 rental units are needed for those earning 80 percent or less than the median.

"This is probably where we should focus the most," Maui County Housing Director Alice Lee told lawmakers last week.

Statewide, there are about 5,800 apartments in federally subsidized housing complexes, and about 5,600 residences -- a mix of apartments, multifamily complexes and some single-family homes -- built with the aid of the state's Rental Housing Trust Fund and Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program.

Under the program, the rent for an apartment or price of a house is based on the annual gross median income on each island. For example, senior residences being built in Hilo are priced at 50 percent of the annual gross median income on the Big Island. Costs are adjusted higher or lower based on the needs of specific groups.

With its available funding, the Housing and Community Development Authority of Hawaii builds about 250 new apartments and houses each year, but does not see any reduction in the number of people who need housing.

Stephanie Aveiro, the housing agency's executive director, said the number of people living in state public housing is in constant flux because of the way families change quickly. As children move out or parents leave, or as families have more children, people often just move from one low-income unit to another.

"Sometimes you're extremely frustrated because you see no net gain," Aveiro said.

While the Legislature tries to address the issue, Aveiro said her agency is focusing on making repairs and renovating apartments in federal public housing complexes.

Of the federal housing units, about 200 are vacant because they are in need of serious repairs, while another 400 can be made ready with some minor renovations.

The state has committed to getting at least 300 of those "make ready" units repaired and ready for use by this summer, Aveiro said.

"We know that if we can make ready 300 of these rentals, we have just increased the amount of affordable inventory by 300," she said.