Kirstin Downey

Kirstin Downey, a local girl who went to Kailua High School and then Penn State University, is a reporter for Civil Beat. She has covered the federal government, state and local issues since returning home to the islands.

Kirstin had an award-winning career on the mainland, climbing from small newspapers in Colorado and Florida to bigger ones in major cities. At the San Jose Mercury in Silicon Valley in the 1980s, Kirstin wrote about the dwindling supply of low-income housing in the region and how rampant real estate speculation was damaging the banking industry. Her work foreshadowed the savings and loan crash of the early 1990s, and she covered the nation’s response as a reporter at the Washington Post.

At the Washington Post, Kirstin won six regional reporting awards for her coverage of economic, political and financial issues. She was a finalist for the Livingston award for outstanding young journalist in America for her series of stories on how investors had abused government loan programs to profiteer and destroy inner-city neighborhoods in the District, contributing to the growing social woes there. She used land records and mortgage filings to document the patterns. Her coverage contributed to what became the largest single set of prosecutions in the history of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, leading to more than 50 convictions.

Kirstin was awarded a Nieman fellowship at Harvard University in 2000-2001 after writing many stories about sexual harassment in the workplace, a social problem that came to light in depositions and documents filed in dozens of class-action lawsuits around the country.

She covered the terrorist attacks in New York City in 2001, writing about the events of the day and the tragic impact on human lives and the U.S. economy, as well as the mysterious follow-on anthrax attacks.

From 2005 to 2007, Kirstin wrote dozens of stories chronicling the dangerous growth of toxic mortgages, repeatedly raising concerns to government agencies that should have been doing more to stop the looming crisis. She emphasized the human impact of the problems, including the foreclosures that devastated families. In 2007, she used data-driven reporting to write in-depth stories describing the pernicious effect of toxic loans targeted and marketed to minorities, immigrants and young families.

She shared in the Pulitzer Prize awarded to the Washington Post’s metro staff in 2008 for coverage of the campus massacre at Virginia Tech. Kirstin wrote pieces profiling the two heroic professors who died that day protecting their students.

After leaving the Post, Kirstin served as an investigator and writer for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, (the Angelides Commission), which published a New York Times-bestselling book on the causes and implications of the economic meltdown of 2008. She wrote the section of the book that detailed the many specific warnings that were ignored by corporations and top government officials.

Kirstin loves history. She is a book author, published by Nan Talese at Doubleday/Random House. Her biography of Frances Perkins, “The Woman Behind the New Deal,” a portrait of the country’s most effective progressive, was named one of the top 10 biographies of the year by the American Library Association. Her book about the controversial Queen Isabella of Spain, “Isabella the Warrior Queen,” was named to BBC’s list of Ten Books to Read, November 2014 and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times award for best biography of the year. The book has been translated into Spanish, Polish and Chinese.

Kirstin and her husband, Neil Averitt, live in Honolulu. Together they have five children. She is trying to learn to speak Hawaiian, and finding it very difficult.

Hotel Doors Are Shutting For Some Lahaina Fire Victims Kirstin Downey/Civil Beat/2023

Hotel Doors Are Shutting For Some Lahaina Fire Victims

Homeless people and those who can't prove their eligibility are being told to leave as Safe Harbor program ends.

Maui’s Fire Victims Are Frustrated By Insurance Hassles, Financial Delays Nathan Eagle/Civil Beat/2023

Maui’s Fire Victims Are Frustrated By Insurance Hassles, Financial Delays

Numerous people showed up at a state Senate hearing on Maui where lawmakers urged state agencies to do more to protect consumers.

A Major Power Outage In Lahaina The Day Of The Fire Likely Saved Lives Nathan Eagle/Civil Beat/2023

A Major Power Outage In Lahaina The Day Of The Fire Likely Saved Lives

High winds and the power failure caused many businesses in Lahaina to shut down the day of the fire, which reduced visitors and foot traffic on the streets of the town

Split-Second Decisions Made All The Difference For These Lahaina Fire Survivors Courtesy Beth Zivitski

Split-Second Decisions Made All The Difference For These Lahaina Fire Survivors

A quick realization that the normal rules no longer applied and a sense of immediacy led some to safety.

Some Historic Lahaina Buildings Could Rise From The Ashes Lahaina Restoration Foundation/2023

Some Historic Lahaina Buildings Could Rise From The Ashes

The town's historic preservation group is considering plans to reconstruct some buildings that partially survived the Aug. 8 fire.

CNHA Opens Relief Center To Help Steer Local People To Assistance (Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement/2023)

CNHA Opens Relief Center To Help Steer Local People To Assistance

Maui residents turn to people they know to help them get through government bureaucracy.

He Kāhea Hoʻāla ʻo Lāhainā, A Wahi A Nā Mea Kilo, Mau Nō Naʻe Ka Pāhiki Kiʻekiʻe No Ke Ahi Hou David Croxford/Civil Beat/2023

He Kāhea Hoʻāla ʻo Lāhainā, A Wahi A Nā Mea Kilo, Mau Nō Naʻe Ka Pāhiki Kiʻekiʻe No Ke Ahi Hou

ʻO ka ʻonipaʻa i kākoʻo ʻia e nā kānāwai kūkulu hale ʻoʻoleʻa, hiki i kēia mua mea ke hoʻēmi aku i ka nui o ka pohō ahi. 

The Great Lahaina Fire Of 1919 Has Eerie Parallels To The Recent Blaze Wo Hing Society

The Great Lahaina Fire Of 1919 Has Eerie Parallels To The Recent Blaze

Volunteer firefighters battled the blaze and many survivors were left to fend for themselves after Maui's first big conflagration.