The nonprofit Hawaii Community Reinvestment Corp. hopes to kick-start new ideas to develop affordable housing across the islands by making its largest donation ever — $790,000 — to create a “distinguished professorship in affordable housing” at the University of Hawaii.

“It seems like the problem is getting ahead of us,” said Keith Kato, who is on the board of directors of the Hawaii Community Reinvestment Corp. “We need new thinking to generate new ideas.”

Through additional donations it hopes to attract, the Hawaii Community Reinvestment Corp. wants to increase the size of the endowment to $1 million.

UH is in the process of filling the new position in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization in the College of Social Sciences.

Four mainland candidates are under consideration for the job that begins in the fall, teaching classes in affordable housing while overseeing research, graduate students and related affordable housing projects.

UH would pay the professor’s salary. Interest from the endowment would fund associated efforts, said Karen Umemoto, chairwoman of UH’s Urban and Regional Planning Department.

The goal is to develop research around affordable housing that would go to lawmakers and the general public to develop potential solutions.

“We’re pretty excited,” said Ralph Mesick, chief risk officer at First Hawaiian Bank and a Hawaii Community Reinvestment Corp. board member. “This is by far the biggest commitment of funds that we’ve made.”

He added: “The goal would be to take a look at this from a fresh perspective and apply classical economic tools to what is really an economic problem. With UHERO and the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, you’re involving urban planning issues, economic problems, social problems. We wouldn’t want them to do a study to come up with the same ideas. We want them to come up with new ideas and new tools.”

Currently, Umemoto’s Urban and Regional Planning Department has one undergraduate and three graduate courses in affordable housing that typically can’t be taught.

“If there was someone locally, we would have hired them,” Umemoto said.

At UH’s flagship Manoa campus, the endowment is also intended to generate interest in affordable housing among a new generation of students.

“We need new thinking, new solutions,” said Roy Katsuda, a member of the Hawaii Community Reinvestment Corp.’s board of directors who is also executive director of the Maui-based, nonprofit Hale Mahaolu housing corporation.

Hale Mahaolu contributed $25,000 to fund the distinguished professorship program, which Katsuda called “a sizable contribution for us.”

“We’re not in the habit of making $25,000 contributions,” he said. “But we’re celebrating our 50th anniversary and affordable housing has been a crying issue for 50 years, probably longer. There hasn’t been a magic bullet to solve the problem. Why not approach it from the academic side? We’ve tried lots of other things.”

Homeless people and the social service workers trying to help them often cite the lack of affordable housing as one of the key reasons driving homelessness across the islands.

“Hawaii is 48th in the country in housing per capita, and we will need to build a total of 80,000 units by 2025 to eliminate one of the nation’s worst housing shortages,” Carl Bonham, UHERO’s executive director, said in a statement. “With the HCRC gift, we have an amazing opportunity to grow and sustain UHERO’s research and outreach to help address Hawaii’s housing crisis.”

Kato, Hawaii Community Reinvestment Corp.’s executive director, is an alumnus of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. His nephew studied urban and regional planning at UCLA.

During a summer gathering of UH Urban and Regional Planning alumni, Kato approached Umemoto with an idea to generate local interest aimed at new ways to approach affordable housing.

“My nephew went to UCLA with a degree in urban planning with an emphasis on affordable housing,” Kato said. “My nephew took classes where they teach students how to access the financing sources. The University (of Hawaii) seemed like they were poised to do it. But you’ve got to have somebody to take it head-on.”