Twice as many households affected by the August 2023 Maui wildfires were living in poverty a year after the disaster, a new survey suggests.
The University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization reported Tuesday that 29% of fire-affected households now live below the poverty line, up from 14% before the fires that destroyed most of Lahaina and claimed 19 homes in Upcountry Maui on Aug. 8, 2023.
UHERO said the recent poverty rate among those affected by the fires also was more than three times the 9% average in 2023 for Maui County, which includes Molokai and Lanai, reported by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The survey reflected
information collected in August from 402 people in 374 households who, as a result of the fires, were displaced from Lahaina or Upcountry, worked in those places or owned a business in those places.
This definition of “fire-affected household” intends to measure economic consequences from the disaster not limited to people who lived in Lahaina and survived that fire, which killed 102 people, destroyed around 3,500 homes, ruined numerous businesses and severely reduced tourism on the Valley Isle.
Trey Gordner, a UHERO data scientist and housing researcher, said Tuesday at a news conference that surveying a broader range of people who had economic ties to Lahaina and Upcountry gives a better measure of the impact and recovery.
“We think it’s an important one to study the true impact of the wildfires and to identify gaps in support, not only for the people who lived in the affected areas, but also for the people who worked there and owned businesses there,” he said.
Gordner said the
magnitude of challenges facing fire-affected households revealed by the survey was striking.
Among some of the survey’s findings for such
households:
>> Income for nearly 1 in 5 people, or almost 20%, dropped by more than half.
>> 45% need financial
support.
>> 32% need housing
assistance.
>> 21% lack adequate food.
>> 1.5% still live in a hotel.
>> About 70% of those employed in the tourism industry before the fires still have jobs in the sector, while fewer than half maintained full-time work.
>> Rent costs 43% more on average for an equal or fewer number of bedrooms.
>> Twice as many live with family or friends, or
remain unhoused.
>> At least 14% live in crowded conditions.
>> 80% of West Maui residents were displaced from their homes, and almost half no longer live in West Maui.
>> Of displaced West Maui residents, 3% moved to another island and 5% left the state.
>> More than a third who worked or owned businesses in West Maui or Kula, but lived elsewhere, were displaced from their homes.
>> Almost a third now living outside West Maui plan to move back within the next year.
The sampling suggests that the findings could apply to 18,000 to 20,000 people, including about 12,000 who lived in Lahaina before the fire and 6,000 who worked in Lahaina but did not live in the West Maui town.
Information about housing costs and income levels for households factor in receipt of assistance from government and nonprofit organizations, which UHERO said shows that widespread gaps in assistance persist.
“It’s really what people are paying out of their pockets,” Daniela Bond-Smith, a research economist involved in the UHERO study, said at the news conference. “And I think taking this into account, it really makes those findings even more striking that poverty has increased so much, incomes have dropped for a substantial part of this population by so much, and … rents have increased that
substantially.”
UHERO plans to repeat the survey monthly in an effort to track the pace and progress of recovery.
The survey was conducted in partnership with the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement and the Hawai‘i Community Foundation.
Current and future results of the Maui Recovery
Survey will be posted on UHERO’s online Maui Recovery Dashboard at analytics.uhero.hawaii.edu.
