How to Create More Affordable Housing on a Tight Budget

Hawaii has attempted for decades to address the need for affordable housing. Over the past 40 years, state and county governments created a web of policies and programs intended to provide for the needs of the people while protecting the landscape and culture of the islands. At the time, considered in the vacuum of the individual moment, each policy seems harmless. But when considered as a collective group of policies that all affect the process of affordable housing development in Hawaii, they make it impossible to provide affordable homes for families and individuals.

As if this recipe for disaster wasn’t bad enough, we watched in horror as the start of the 21st Century brought the Great Recession to the United States, and finally, in 2008 to the shores of Hawaii. We watched large corporations go out of business, leaving thousands of workers unemployed. Mass government layoffs and furloughs were the answer to cut government spending. The ability of the working class to afford to stay in their home became dependedent on sacrificing food, health care, transportation, or educational needs, resulting in unstable homes. Even those sacrifices weren’t enough, and the lack of affordable housing during the economic crisis, pushed thousands more (particularly workers) into homelessness. Homelessness and unstable homes beget higher rates of depression, crime, poor health, educational instability, unemployment, abuse, and suicide; all of which burden the safety net and cost the State more money in the long run.

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