Millions in proposed funding sparks new interest in Hawaiian Home Lands

The potential for the single-greatest infusion of funding to reduce the waitlist of Native Hawaiians hoping to get on ancestral lands has resulted in a five-fold increase in applications to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands over just the past month.

DHHL typically receives three to four requests for applications per day, but the number skyrocketed to 20 per day beginning a month ago, DHHL spokesperson Cedric Duarte told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

The state Senate Committee on Hawaiian Affairs today is scheduled to hear the latest version of House Bill 2511 that would pump more than $600 million into DHHL to speed up the development of lots to help clear the waitlist of 28,700 Native Hawaiian beneficiaries.

But if new DHHL applications are approved, the waitlist could expand even further as attention grows around HB 2511 and the latest version of companion Senate Bill 3359.

One idea in the Legislature to help reduce the waitlist — and fulfill a promise made to Native Hawaiians a century ago — would give $100,000 to those who live in fee simple homes outside of Hawaiian Home Lands in exchange for removing their names from the waitlist.

At the request of legislators, Duarte said DHHL conducted an email survey this month of about 12,000 beneficiaries asking, “If DHHL provided you with $100,000 to purchase a new home, to pay your mortgage, or to pay your current rent, would you be willing to remove yourself from the DHHL waiting list?”

Just under 600 people responded and 45% said they would remove their names while 55% would not.

Under the DHHL funding bills, about $500 million would go to develop more lots. Beneficiaries would still be responsible for paying for their homes or building them.

Beneficiaries pay $1 a year for a 99-year lease, have the option to renew the lease for an additional 100 years and the ability to transfer the lease to children and grandchildren who qualify.

The bills before the Legislature would allow DHHL to deliver 2,910 homestead lots on Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Hawaii island and Kauai by 2028. Some $112 million would be used for the $100,000 payments to beneficiaries willing to remove their names from the waitlist.

Hawaii lawmakers in 2021 appropriated a record $78 million for DHHL to develop more than 700 homestead lots.

While state lawmakers continue to move ahead on the $600 million proposal, the U.S. Senate on Friday forwarded a bill to President Joe Biden that would provide the federal government’s largest infusion to DHHL — $22.3 million.

The federal funding would dwarf the federal government’s 2021 appropriation of just $2 million.

“We secured the highest level of funding for Native Hawaiian housing ever,” U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Housing and Urban Development, said in a statement Friday. “This major increase in funding is a big win and means DHHL will have more resources to put people into homes.”