De Mont Kalai Manaole has been the caretaker for vacant Hawaiian homelands in Nānākuli since December.

The lot used to be a dumping ground, but the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands wants Manaole to use it as an experiment for getting indigent Hawaiians into homesteads. He’s one of more than 29,000 applicants waiting for a homestead lease under a century-old federal mandate. 

Specifically, he has the 11,203rd spot on the list for a residential lease on Oʻahu, putting him at virtually the bottom of the island’s applicant pool. Thousands have already died waiting for homestead lots since Hawaiʻi became a state in 1959.

“My mom died on the waitlist, my aunties died on the waitlist, my uncle died on the waitlist,” Manaole said. “It’s just been one atrocity after the next.”

Manaole, 60, would need to wait years more under the traditional process of depending on the Legislature to fund projects, having the state hire contractors to build them and then hoping his name is drawn for a lease. And once it is, he needs to have the money ready to finance a new home.

While pilot projects like Manaole’s could put little dents in the waitlist, the bigger problem won’t budge without significant investment from the state. But this year, DHHL got no new money for projects.

While lawmakers allocated more than $200 million over the next two years to refurbish rental housing units, housing initiatives specifically for Hawaiians – who are more likely than other ethnicities to be homeless and live in overcrowded households –  largely fell by the wayside at the Legislature this year.

“It just seems to be a pattern of Hawaiian issues just not being at the forefront for the majority of our colleagues,” Rep. Dan Holt, who leads the House Native Hawaiian Affairs Caucus, said.

DHHL came away with no additional funds from lawmakers this year. Lawmakers also couldn’t agree on a measure that would clear the way for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to build residential towers in Kakaʻako that would include up to 2,000 new housing units. A portion of those units were also planned to be set aside for Native Hawaiians.

The project could have taken a bite out of the housing crunch on Oʻahu, which needs at least an additional 13,000 new units built in the next decade to satisfy housing demand. 

No New Money For DHHL

The Native Hawaiian Affairs Caucus began the session hoping to take a big swing at issues facing Hawaiians. Slowly, all of its bills died.

A measure to create a program that markets products from Hawaiian-owned businesses languished in House committees in February.

Another bill that would increase the Transient Accommodations Tax to provide a steady stream of income to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands never got a hearing from the House Finance Committee.

And finally, the caucus’ proposal to provide DHHL with another funding boost to spur lot development died in conference committee.

In 2022, lawmakers gave the department $600 million to help address its waitlist. This year, House lawmakers proposed giving the agency another $600 million after DHHL Director Kali Watson told the Legislature that the agency would likely need that much to follow through on plans to develop 6,000 housing lots in the next decade.

But those plans have shifted several times since Watson took over as director in 2023, leaving some lawmakers uneasy over how the funds were being spent.

The Senate cut the appropriation down to $50 million. But in the end, lawmakers couldn’t come to an agreement on a final amount, and DHHL was left with no additional funds for homebuilding.

The department came away with just $20 million this year for routine repair and maintenance, but not new homebuilding.

Watson said that, in the short-term, the department’s building plans should be OK. 

“We’ve got everything lined up,” Watson said in a brief interview shortly after lawmakers deferred the funding bill. “There’s nothing where not having additional money now prevents us from moving forward.”

The department plans to develop 29 projects in the next decade and has already begun construction on more than half of them. They are anticipated to yield more than 1,100 housing lots, according to the department’s testimony.

But Watson said the agency will need additional funding in the coming years to finish some of those projects and start on others that could whittle the waitlist from nearly 30,000 today to about 23,000 by the year 2035.

“We needed that money to put our people in homes,” Manaole said.

Holt said he would spend the months ahead of the next session coming up with ways to ensure that the department has a steady stream of funding.  He also said he wants to allay his colleagues’ concerns that the department isn’t managing its money properly in the hopes that lawmakers could push through another funding measure next year.

The courts have ruled that it’s up to the Legislature to adequately fund the department.

“And we seem to look the other way all the time,” Holt said. “It’s pretty frustrating.”

Kakaʻako Development Halted

Another proposal by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to lift a zoning restriction in Kakaʻako that would allow it to build two 400-foot residential towers met a fairly early death in the Legislature. That was in February after late amendments from the Senate Ways and Means Committee seemed to doom the measure.

What will happen has not yet been determined. OHA trustees are evaluating potential leasing options for one of the warehouse lots it owns in Kakaʻako. But a decision on how to move forward with the broader residential development hasn’t been made.

Lawmakers included money in the budget for the Hawaiʻi Community Development Authority to undertake a new master planning study for the Kakaʻako Makai area. The HCDA would ultimately need to approve OHA’s plans. And the development agency has said it wants to gather more community feedback before lawmakers approve zoning changes.

OHA Board of Trustees Chairman Kai Kahele said in January that this may be the last time the office pursues residential development on the properties it acquired in a 2012 settlement with the state. 

But it’s hard to imagine that OHA won’t try to pursue development in some form for its Kakaʻako properties.

“It could be a huge benefit for the trust,” Jacob Aki, from the Oʻahu Council of the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs, said. “But these things take time.”

OHA officials say they will start attending select neighborhood board meetings on Oʻahu, including making regular appearances at the Ala Moana-Kakaʻako neighborhood board, where area residents interested OHA’s developments would be able to air their concerns.

The office’s other priority measure to fund a survey of public lands with the goal of reconciling the amount of land revenues due to OHA each year also died during the session. However, Holt said the state budget has about $1 million to fund that effort.

Trustee Brickwood Galuteria said the office would likely pay for the effort itself even if money isn’t available for the surveying and accounting project. He said the next step is to work out an agreement with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources on how to move forward.

Overall, Galuteria, a former lawmaker, described the session as “partly cloudy.”

While the office appears to be moving forward with the land trust project, lawmakers declined to fund additional positions at OHA to implement the office’s strategic plan aimed at improving youth and economic outcomes for Native Hawaiians.

Another measure that sought to address quorum issues for island burial councils also died. The councils make decisions on the reinterment and care of Native Hawaiian burials when bones are discovered during the course of building projects.

But many of the councils lack the number of members necessary to meet each month. The issue was underscored on Kauaʻi last year when installation of a new septic system at a home near Hanalei Bay unearthed native burials. The Kauaʻi burial council hasn’t met since 2022.

While most bills dealing with Hawaiian affairs died this session, Aki of the Hawaiian Civic Clubs said Hawaiians attained key appointments to state boards and commissions.

Todd Apo now serves as chairman of the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority after former chairman Mufi Hanneman was ousted amid an ethics probe.

And the Senate confirmed the appointment of cultural practitioner Hannah Springer to the Commission on Water Resource Management after Gov. Josh Green’s last pick for the cultural expert seat on the commission withdrew over opposition from conservation groups.

“It’s not just about getting bills passed or getting Hawaiians into the Legislature,” Aki said. “It’s getting Hawaiians into key positions that have a big role in policymaking.”

Civil Beat’s reporting on the Hawaiʻi State Legislature is supported in part by the Donald and Astrid Monson Education Fund.