Housing progress needs firm steps
Hawaiʻi’s affordable housing shortage is a chasm that has deepened for years. This year the Legislature has allotted a relatively good amount to it, but the problem is that “relatively good” is not quite good enough. Last year’s outstanding but overdue appropriation of $200 million has not been replicated and, advocates say, repeat showings of that commitment level is what it will take to make up for decades of lost time.
Overall, it would appear that, despite some out-of-the-box thinking as the session opened, lawmakers signed off without making significant gains on housing needs. Talk of Singapore-style density in apartment projects was controversial, but it at least signaled a grasp of the scale of the housing need.
Weeks into the session, it quickly became clear that anything on that order was going to have to wait for some future year.
There is some rationale here, in a year when projections from the state Council on Revenues seem to be dipping. The legislature seemed a bit constrained fiscally.
And, connected to the housing issue are other socio-economic and land-use concerns. Advocates are rightly concerned that the failure of a minimum-wage increase to pass will not make it any easier for low-income renters to afford what housing is available.
