The Hawaiʻi Public Housing Authority wants to cut in half the length of time it’s required to store unclaimed belongings left behind by evicted tenants.

Under a bill that’s part of Gov. Josh Green’s legislative package, the housing authority could get rid of tenants’ stuff after 14 days. Currently, it must hold onto them 30 days.

HB1097 is scheduled to go before the Senate Housing Committee on March 18.

Housing Authority Executive Director Hakim Ouansafi, in written testimony he submitted in support of the bill, said the shorter time frame would make housing available to new tenants more quickly.

“From years of experience, we have found that the vast majority of items left behind are not valuable personal belongings, but instead, broken furniture, trash, and other discarded materials,” Ouansafi said in his testimony, adding that tenants get multiple warnings beforehand that they must remove all their things when evicted.

The housing authority is short on storage space, he said, so belongings that people don’t take with them when evicted often need to be kept in the newly vacant unit, which prevents maintenance and repairs before a new tenant can move in.

 “Every day a unit remains vacant is another day a family remains unhoused,” Ouansafi wrote in his testimony.

Lenda Tominiko, a longtime resident of Kūhiō Park Terrace, said 14 days is an unfairly short window for people who are forced to move out.

“Sometimes when people are evicted, they panic and they leave everything behind,” Tominiko said. “They don’t know where they’re going to take their things.”

The authority provides housing to about 5,200 low income families in federal and state housing it manages, or about 13,000 people, according to its 2024 annual report. The report said 22 families were evicted statewide from public housing between July 2023 and July 2024.

The housing authority did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.