The city will lose more than $11 million in federal funding for seven programs and projects that provide special-needs housing, small-business assistance and address environmental and climate efforts.
The biggest losses will mean a $4.8 million cut for planning for a potential rapid transit bus program for the Waianae Coast, followed by a $3 million loss in federal funding for special needs housing improvements.
“It’s not ideal,” said Council member Matt Weyer, who chairs the City Council committee on Housing, Sustainability, Economy and Health. “It’s unfortunate and disappointing.”
The city offers city-owned buildings — including single-family homes — so nonprofit organizations can charge “nominal rent” to provide housing to vulnerable people with “severe mental illness, physical needs, domestic abuse survivors, at-risk youth and those coming out of homelessness,” Weyer said.
“We’re not in the program to make money,” he said. “We’re helping nonprofits to provide special needs housing.”
The Council continues to work on the city budget to help cover cuts in federal funding, Weyer said.
Similar budgeting plans are underway across Punchbowl Street in the state Legislature, which also is trying to plan for federal cuts to both state programs and nonprofit groups that rely on federal grants.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency — which has cut $375,000 for a photovoltaic project at Kaimuki Middle School — justified it in a memo to the city under the headline: “FEMA Ends Wasteful, Politicized Grant Program, Returning Agency to Core Mission of Helping Americans Recovering from Natural Disasters.”
“FEMA is ending the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program and canceling all BRIC applications. … ” FEMA wrote.
The programs losing federal funding align with President Donald Trump’s political philosophies, justified by his pledge to eliminate government waste and fraud, political analyst Neal Milner said.
The overall loss in federal funding to the city, while relatively small, matters to programs that relied in it, Milner said.
He called it “small potatoes, but not small potatoes to the people who need the money.”
FEMA, itself remains at risk of being shut down by Trump, Milner said, which would affect the federal response to disasters like the 2023 Maui wildfires, which FEMA remains involved in.
“He’s not a big fan of FEMA,” Milner said.
And Trump opposes clean energy, questions climate change and opposes mass transit, Milner said.
“You’ve got all those little red flags here,” Milner said. “What’s missing is any kind of guardrail to stop this. The people who defend the process defend it on the grounds that there’s too much waste. The justification is we can do it because we can.”
The loss of $4.8 million in federal funds for the Waianae Coast bus planning was part of the Trump administration’s request to cancel “all congressional directed spending requests” for the current fiscal year, said Travis Ota, spokesperson for the city’s Department of Transportation Services.
The money was meant for what Ota called “a very preliminary planning study to improve transit service along the Waianae Coast, from Makaha” to the city’s Skyline rail station at the University of Hawaii-West Oahu.
The cuts were typical for the first year of a new presidential administration, Travis said in an email.
DTS expects to make a similar request for federal funds for a study in the 2026 fiscal year, Ota said.
But the stalled planning worries Milner for a densely populated, dry part of Oahu that remains at risk for wildfires — but has only one road out.
“There’s really no way to get out of there if there’s a natural disaster,” Milner said.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency explained its reasoning for eliminating nearly $2 million in spending for a 2024 “EPA Climate Champions” program, saying “The objectives of the award are no longer consistent with EPA funding priorities.”
“The grant specified above provides funding for programs that promote initiatives that conflict with the Agency’s policy of prioritizing merit, fairness, and excellence in performing our statutory functions; that are not free from fraud, abuse, waste, or duplication; or that otherwise fail to serve the best interests of the United States.”
The city’s Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency on its website Wednesday still touted the 2024 EPA funding and said, “The 2024 program is underway!”
It also announced that the city was awarded another $1 million grant from the EPA “to continue this program through 2026.”
The program pairs organizations with an intern to “help the organization adapt to the impacts of climate change,” according to the website.
The Trump administration also canceled $500,000 for a “Green Stormwater Infrastructure Planning Study.”
On its website, the city’s Storm Water Quality Division said, “Green Stormwater Infrastructure uses or mimics the natural landscape to treat storm water at the source of pollution and may also reduce flooding and improve aesthetics. Green Stormwater Infrastructure includes the capture and reuse of rainwater.”
The city also lost $375,000 in federal funds for a microgrid project at Kaimuki Middle School with the goal of completing a photovoltaic system that would allow the school to operate independently of the power grid.
It was intended as a possible pilot project for other Oahu communities.
Wayne Tanaka, director of the Hawaii chapter of the Sierra Club, worries about the effects of the cuts for Oahu’s environment — and especially on the city’s ongoing efforts to provide wastewater treatment following a 2010 federal consent decree with the EPA.
“Stormwater control and wastewater management are pretty critical to maintaining our environment,” Tanaka said. “It just compounds the concerns we’re seeing in rollbacks of federal protections and safeguards and slashing of budgets and staff. They affect all of us, in particular the most vulnerable members of our community.”
CITY PROGRAMS, PROJECTS SLASHED
$4.8 million for a planning study for bus rapid transit along the Waianae Coast.
$3 million for special needs housing improvements.
$1.9 million for 2024 EPA Climate Champions program to pair interns with community organizations to prepare for climate change.
$500,000 for a Green Stormwater Infrastructure Planning Study to use the natural landscape to treat stormwater at the source of pollution.
$404,000 for the city’s Community Equity Program for Small, Disadvantaged and Underrepresented Businesses.
$375,000 for a Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities microgrid project at Kaimuki Middle School that would complete a photovoltaic project to take the school off the power grid.
$296,128 for planning and implementation of food waste reduction and expansion of composting.
Source: City and County of Honolulu
