Evacuees turned into nomads amid housing shortage
LAHAINA, Hawaii — Charles Nahale spent a restless night trying to sleep in the back seat of his pickup truck after a wildfire destroyed his home and the town of Lahaina. The next two nights weren’t much better: The singer and guitarist put his feet on one chair and sat in another as he took refuge on the grounds of an evacuated hotel where he once performed for guests.
Nahale eventually found a timeshare condo with a bed, shower and kitchen — lodging he was able to keep until Friday, when, yet again, he had to move, this time with officials setting him up in a different hotel condo.
He is one of many whose lives have become transient since the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century left at least 98 people dead. The blaze destroyed thousands of buildings and unmoored residents who now face challenges posed by Maui’s location and status as a vacation hub.
“It’s hard to begin the healing process when you’re worried about the essentials,” Nahale said.
Some are bouncing from hotel room to hotel room, in some cases to make way for the return of tourists who are crucial to the local economy. Many are struggling to find places to rent amid a housing shortage — and steep prices — that plagued the island even before the fire wiped out an estimated 3,000 homes and apartments in Lahaina.
And it’s not feasible for authorities to bring in the mobile homes used to shelter people after natural disasters elsewhere, given Hawaii’s humidity and the difficulty of shipping them from the U.S. mainland.
The government, via the Federal Emergency Management Agency, paid for Nahale and some 8,000 other displaced residents to move into hotels, vacation rentals and other short-term housing after the Aug. 8 fire. There are still about 6,900 people in shortterm lodging.
It’s unusual for FEMA to put so many people in hotels after a disaster, particularly for months, but Maui had plenty of empty hotel rooms after tourists left in the wake of the fire.
In other states, people unable to move home after a disaster might move in with friends and family members who live within a few hours’ drive. That’s trickier on Maui, an island of about 150,000 people that’s a 30-minute plane ride from the nearest major city, Honolulu.