Tunisia RPCV Lance Holter says Maui needs real affordable housing for our working people
Maui needs real affordable housing for our working people
Home-ownership is the key to a vibrant economy
Guest Commentary By Lance Holter
"There are no housing opportunities left for the people upon whose backs Maui was built."
Maui has a resident population of 122,000. Over 36,000 of our people are service workers, retail workers, hotel workers, and restaurant workers, and are making yearly incomes of $19,000 to $25,000 (according to the Maui County Data Book, 2001). They earn a modest income, one which does not allow them to own a home at normal Maui prices.
Entry wages for a nurse, fireman, policeman, teacher, county planner begin in the $25,000 to $31,000 range. According to the book, Barely Making It On Your Own In Hawai'i, two adults with an infant and preschooler need $53,674 per year for basic survival on Maui. To own a $215,000 home would require a yearly income of $53,000 - with $10,000 down, and an interest rate of 7 percent - for a fully documented audited loan, using a nearly perfect credit report, with few outstanding debts like car payments, credit cards, school loans and unpaid medical bills.
If a society can't provide housing for it's working families we have a socio-economic crises of huge proportions. Just this week I spoke with the relative of a family moving to Las Vegas because they can't afford to own a home on Maui.
This is a problem for the rest of us because an experienced supervising medical professional who makes nearly $50,000 a year is leaving her position in one of Maui's elderly care facilities. Who will fill this vacancy, and continue to do so as each successive replacement leaves because they can't afford to live here? Losing professional care givers to the mainland has a domino effect locally and socially. Further, what happens to our Island as we loose teachers, police, firemen, qualified secretaries, county planners etc. to the mainland because they can only own a home there and not on Maui? What responsible official wants to tell these people the hard cruel fact; "you'll never own your own home here on Maui."
So how can this change? How can we find relief?
To begin with, a sense of socio-economic stewardship must be created and nurtured with the large landowners. Public and private partnerships with experienced non-governmental agencies - like Habitat For Humanity - will create home ownership opportunities. Flexible mortgage construction loans, whereby the developer provides the infrastructure, builds the shell, and the new homeowner completes the finish phase with the help of friends and family, can keep the price of the home affordable. These and other means will begin the process.
A vibrant and healthy economy can be created on Maui when we begin to provide the opportunity for Maui's working families to own their own home.
In time, with home ownership, a family creates equity, assets, and a financial base which forms collateral for loans. The homeowners and their children can use this equity money for things like higher education, or to create the financing for a small business plan. They can plan a home addition or purchase a car. There are a whole spectrum of ways money can be generated and put back into the Island economy to create jobs and increase retail sales.
This can be a win-win situation for all of us. The large landowner gets the benefit in sales of land, at a reasonable affordable price (which might not be productive agricultural lands to begin with). Sometimes these lands have been owned for 140 years and came into their inventory starting at a very affordable initial price.
This is the start to providing homeownership at "truly" affordable prices, based upon Maui income realities. We can begin to create a viable, long-term, sustainable economic vehicle not based solely upon tourism or short-term benefits - or based on developments that create second and third executive homes, five million dollar mansions really, for the wealthy.
The public and working families of Maui will not co-operate with developments which benefit only the wealthy. There are no housing opportunities left for the people upon whose backs Maui was built. This must change.
The developers and the boardrooms of the large landowners need to understand this. Take care of your workers, teachers, nurses, police, public servants, who today can't afford a home.
When we do this, and only when we do this, will Maui have the long-term vibrant economy we all deserve and know as our birthright.
Lance Holter is a long time resident of Maui and has raised his three daughters here. He is a former Peace Corps volunteer, Founding Board Member Of Habitat For Humanity-Maui, a Hawai'i General Building and Plumbing Contractor, and Real Estate Broker.
