Few on our island have escaped the impact of the shortage of affordable housing. Whether one is experiencing it directly or not, it is affecting our families, friends, co-workers and neighbors, leaving a societal scar across the landscape of our island home, and the wound appears to be deepening over time.
The crisis that has emerged from not meeting our low- and middle-income housing needs on Kauai reflects the diversity found within our community, meaning there is no singular sector that has not been touched, and as such no singular housing solution will fit all our requirements.
An individual person experiencing chronic homelessness may need single-occupancy transitional housing and the support of social services, while a family with keiki may be more suited to multi-bedroom housing in closer proximity to schools. Farm workers need housing on agriculture land, and for our kupuna housing suitable to their transitional stage of life.
Affordable housing as we have known it in the past cannot by itself meet the needs of our diverse and changing population. We are at a critical juncture where we need to re-think our ideas of how to create a place we can each call home.
In the 2018 Kauai County General Plan it is stated that there is a current deficit of 1,400 housing units across income levels, with a projected need of approximately 9,000 homes by 2035. Additionally, and more importantly, 44 percent of our community is made up of cost-burdened households, meaning that more than 30 percent of their household income is spent on rent or mortgage.
At the same time, over the past year, the number of houses for sale on Kauai averaged between 800-900 properties at any given time. Yet between 2008-2015, 45 percent of homes sold were to mainland or international buyers. As the real estate market continues to be strong, and we see new single-housing construction flourish all around us, we are in fact in the middle of an affordability crisis.
We on Kauai are not alone in this crisis. The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies found that 38.9 million households around the country are, like us, cost-burdened. One of the main issues (but certainly not the only) is the cost of building new housing on Kauai.
Affordable housing development, at least approached as we have in the past, often does not add up. Without government subsidies and policy support, the numbers don’t create enough of an incentive for developers to add to our inventory. So we must ask ourselves, is there another way?
Just as Gov. Ige and Mayor Kawakami each made a campaign promise to make affordable housing a priority, so have government leaders around the country — and they are starting to deliver. When government leaders, nonprofits, for-profit developers and communities get serious and creative about solving the affordable housing crisis, solutions can take shape to solve the shortage of low- and middle-income affordable housing.
There is a lot for Kauai to learn from others who have forged ahead of us and built momentum on the thrust created by strong political will and the desire to seriously address the impacts that are being felt communitywide.
Please join us in building a deeper understanding of what led us to this housing crisis to begin with, and then explore possible workable solutions so that all of our community can find a place to call home.
Five expert panelists will guide us in examining our current situation and dialogue with us on what it is going to take to transform this crisis into a realistic and manageable path forward. We welcome everyone in the community to join the conversation.
“Understanding the Affordable Housing Crisis Forum” is set for 6 to 8:30 p.m. tonight at Ha Cofffee Bar in Lihuse. Info: www.communitycoalitionkauai.org
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Anne Walton is with Community Coalition Kauai
