One year after the wildfires: Rising poverty and housing instability point to ongoing gaps in assistance

UHERO, October 8, 2024

The Maui Recovery Survey: Housing & Jobs monitors the housing and economic recovery of fire-impacted households on Maui.

This initiative, launched one year after the devastating Maui wildfires of August 2023, provides monthly updates on the socioeconomic conditions in West Maui and Kula on a public dashboard.

The findings reflect the ongoing challenges fire-impacted households face in terms of housing stability, economic recovery, and access to critical resources.

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Executive Summary

The Maui Recovery Survey: Housing & Jobs monitors the housing and economic recovery of fire-impacted households on Maui. This initiative, launched one year after the devastating Maui wildfires of August 2023, provides monthly updates on the socioeconomic conditions in West Maui and Kula on a public dashboard. The project is run by UHERO in partnership with the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement (CNHA) and the Hawai‘i Community Foundation (HCF).

The initial results from August 2024 include responses from 402 individuals representing 374 households who lived, worked, or owned businesses in West Maui or Kula at the time of the wildfires. The findings reflect the ongoing challenges fire-impacted households face in terms of housing stability, economic recovery, and access to critical resources. Poverty, unemployment, rent costs and housing instability have risen dramatically and these increases are persisting more than a year after the disaster. This suggests that gaps in assistance are still widespread and disproportionately affect the most vulnerable population groups.

Importantly, the (near) real-time and ongoing nature of this survey is critical to assessing the progress of Maui’s recovery. For example, the poverty rate for the survey cohort is more than three times higher than the most recent available poverty data for Maui County in 2023 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2023). This staggering disparity underscores the importance of collecting data in real time and on an ongoing basis. Most of the existing data about the fire-affected community is held by federal and state agencies. It is often not publicly available, not updated on a frequent basis and not shared between agencies. This lack of transparency hampers public accountability and effective coordination among stakeholders. Most publicly available data is only released with a substantial time lag, limiting its usefulness for timely decision-making. The Maui Recovery Survey contributes to filling this data gap.

Further key findings from the initial results include:

Housing

• Households impacted by the fire are paying on average 43% more rent for the same or fewer bedrooms.

• At least 14% of surveyed households live in crowded conditions.

• The proportion of fire-affected households living with family/friends or unhoused has nearly doubled since the wildfires.

• 80% of West Maui residents from our sample were displaced from their homes and almost half had to leave West Maui.

• Displacement has not only affected residents of West Maui and Kula. More than a third of those who worked or owned businesses in West Maui or Kula, but lived elsewhere, were displaced from their homes following the disaster.

• Almost a third of households currently living outside of West Maui plan to move back within the next year.

Economic Impact

• Nearly 1 in 5 survey participants have seen their income drop by more than half.

• 29% of fire-affected households now live below the poverty line, compared to 14% before the fires. This is more than three times higher than Maui County average for 2023.

• Fire-impacted individuals face reduced job stability. Many work fewer hours, earn less income, or have lost their jobs entirely.

• Only about 70% of the survey participants who were employed in the tourism industry before the fires still have jobs in the sector. Less than half kept their full-time employment in the tourism industry.

• Many survey respondents report ongoing unmet needs: over 45% require financial support, more than 30% need housing assistance, and over 20% lack adequate food.

• Gaps in assistance persist. Individuals who are not receiving government support are more likely to report unmet needs

PDF: UHERO Report

AP: Researchers say poverty and unemployment are up in Lahaina after last year's wildfires

KITV: Sharp increase in poverty and housing instability persists in Lahaina, report shows

SA: New survey tracks recovery of households affected by Maui fires

MN: Researchers say poverty and unemployment are up in Lahaina after last year’s wildfires

SN: Report finds fire survivors struggling with housing, poverty (spectrumlocalnews.com)

HNN: Troubling data from UH researchers details challenges for those impacted by Maui wildfires (hawaiinewsnow.com)