Housing Hawaii Past Events

Housing Hawaii Fall Conference one-day event - Developing Affordable Housing: Avoiding Roadblocks and Clearing Hurdles.

Conference Highlights

The October 17, 2007 Housing Hawaii Fall Conference was an unqualified success," says EAH Housing Vice President Kevin Carney. Mr. Carney is also the President of Housing Hawaii, a broad coalition of public, private, and nonprofit organizations dedicated to creating, preserving and supporting affordable housing through education and development.

The intent of this conference was to discuss how to circumvent the costly and time-consuming obstacles one can be faced with when attempting to undertake the construction of affordable housing in Hawaii. The conference brought together representatives from both national and local housing organizations, financial institutions, developers, nonprofit organizations, government representatives, and others who have an interest in promoting affordable housing.

The theme of the conference was &quotDeveloping Affordable Housing: Avoiding Roadblocks and Clearing Hurdles." Following opening remarks by Mr. Carney, Linda Couch, Deputy Director of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, provided the audience of over 200 housing professionals and government officials with detailed statistics on 's Housing issues.

One of the topics Ms. Couch covered was the balance of wages and housing, for example, in order to afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment in Honolulu one must earn $24.60 per hour in order to pay the fair market rent of $1,279.00 per month. A glaring statistic is that Hawaii currently has a shortage of 9,739 rental units which are affordable to extremely low income households (those at 30% or below the area median income).

Ms. Couch's presentation was then followed by a panel of local housing professionals, sharing their experiences developing affordable housing. Representatives from three county governments, Oahu, Maui and the Big Island then presented their latest initiatives toward creating more affordable housing opportunities in the state of Hawaii. Housing Hawaii was honored, and extremely pleased to have Big Island Mayor Harry Kim, Maui Mayor Charmaine Tavares, local Housing Directors, and a representative from Oahu's Department of Community Services to participate in the discussions. Additionally, Maile Shimabukuro, a Representative from Hawaii's State House of Representatives provided everyone with an update on housing issues that are on the agenda, and will be addressed at the next legislative session beginning in January 2008.

The highlight of the conference was an announcement made by Senior Policy Advisor, Linda Smith to Governor Linda Lingle, regarding Hawaii's response to HUD's National Call to Action. HUD's plan is to remove barriers to affordable housing by forming a State Task Force. Ms. Smith emphasized the fact that there was no need to further study the issues, since there have been many studies already conducted over the years, and many recommendations made without implementation. Ms. Smith went on to say that the task force has been provided with a summary of the studies, and recommendations for improving its current systems. It is now up to the task force to recommend specific methods of implementation, and they must do so within the next year.

Ms. Smith was presented with an award for the State from HUD by A. Bryant Applegate, Senior Counsel and Director of HUD's Affordable Housing Communities Initiative. The award was to recognize the State's proactive stance and participation in HUD's National Call to Action program.