Editor’s note: If there’s any doubt about the high stakes for Hawaii’s people as we choose a new governor, the intense campaigning now underway dispels it.

In the spirit of providing information to readers, the Star-Advertiser’s Sunday Insight section asks the main, actively campaigning Democratic gubernatorial candidates — Kirk Caldwell, Vicky Cayetano and Josh Green — about their detailed strategies for Hawaii’s most urgent and toughest issues.

Their visions will be presented on the last Sunday of each month prior to August’s primary election: today, May 29, June 26 and July 31.

Today’s topic: Affordable housing

Hawaii’s housing crisis touches everyone in our community — from kupuna concerned whether their fixed income will cover rising costs, to our kids desperately hoping they won’t have to move away just to survive. It’s the main issue I hear while knocking on doors in neighborhoods across the state.

Sixty thousand affordable units statewide is no small task, especially when the last 20 years of developments have focused on building units that are too expensive for local families. It’s not enough to have the platitudes and promises we have had for 50 years. We need plans. We need experience. We need courage.

Housing, health care, education — these are basic human rights.

My time as mayor allowed us to try many of the things people talk about, and learn lessons that put us in a position to hit the ground running.

1. Let’s develop on state-owned lands. As the largest landowner, the state can lease property to developers with sewer and water infrastructure, and in turn afford to build homes for $400,000 or rent affordably At the county, we did this with projects such as Kahauiki Village, Aiea Sugar Mill, Kapolei Parkway and others. The city provided the land with utilities so these homes are affordable for families earning $60,000 or less. We can do the same for teacher housing at appropriate Department of Education schools.

2. Invest long-term in Hawaiian Home Lands. $600 million to DHHL is a great start, but it is just one step — building 4,000 of the 28,000 homes needed. Every single home built for a homesteader is a home that is affordable and is taken by a local family. We have a commitment to Native Hawaiians that is part of our Constitution. Let’s run toward it, not away from it.

3. Get local families into vacation units. I worked with the City Council in 2019 to pass legislation that for the first time in 30 years allowed us to meaningfully enforce vacation rental laws. It slowed the rapid conversion of units into vacation rentals and finally saw decreases. We also passed progressive property taxes on high-value second homes, most of which were owned out of state. Let’s give the counties the tools they need to manage this problem. It’s simple: Residential homes should be for housing residents.

4. Ignite a culture of innovation. Let’s be open to new ideas. As mayor, we did 0% interest down-payment assistance, passed accessory-dwelling unit laws for ohana housing, and provided incentives to encourage small apartment owners to build denser in urban areas. We also leveraged federal funds to buy empty hotels and buildings to convert to housing, built the state’s first multistory modular building, partnered to build the first three kauhale, and directly built 2,500 homes for homeless families. We need leadership that understands how to implement innovative ideas in government.

5. Partnering with community. We have to sit down and listen and plan for our future together. The state cannot just bulldoze over and through communities. And as a community, we have to do more than say “no” and instead consider how to say “Yes!” to the ways we can be part of addressing the challenges in front of us, while maintaining what makes our home special.

Perhaps more than anything, we need the courage to do it. Mayors rarely get elected to higher office. It’s because they have to make tough decisions, and that’s not how you make friends. You have to make tough decisions anyway. Guided by values of responsibility.

Growing up in Hilo, we were taught early our kuleana to care for one another. As a teenager, my dad insisted I get the hardest job around — working in the sugarcane fields with the sabidong crew in Hilo. I learned what hard work looked like in those fields with men two or three times my age, breaking their backs to feed and house their families. For many families today, even two or three jobs isn’t enough. We need a change.

It’s a heavy kuleana to ensure the next generation has a home and a community to grow in with the same optimism for the future we had. But it may be our most important job. Let’s do it together.

Kirk Caldwell is a former Honolulu mayor, who also previously served in the state House.