Off the News: Keeping renters in their homes

Despite massive unemployment resulting from COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, family homelessness did not increase in Hawaii; it has fallen by nearly 60% since 2015. A state moratorium on evictions between April 2020 and August 2021 played a part, along with state and federal rent and utility relief funding, and a mediation program known as Act 57.

Act 57 diverted as many as 1,201 eviction cases in 2021, benefiting tenants and landlords, according to a Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice study. That indicates continued short-term rental subsidies and tenant-landlord mediation can help keep struggling families housed.