'Downright inhumane': Maui victims plea for aid after fires charred homes, lives, history

Sarah Burns has raised her family on the island of Maui in the spirit of Ohana for decades.

But that spirit of Ohana, the Hawaiian word for "family," is fading as quickly as the vestiges of the Lahaina community that burned in one of the most devastating wildfires in U.S. history.

"If a housing solution for residents like us is not found, we will regrettably be forced to leave Hawaii. Time is of the essence," Burns wrote in a recent letter to the Maui County Council. Dozens of other letters from longtime island residents reflect similar despair and frustration.

Burns and others who long have feared being displaced from the island they've lived on for generations are angry about the lack of help available. They blame city and state officials for not doing enough to free up housing. Many are facing emotional distress. There have been 10 reported suicides on the island since the wildfires, according to local police.

Aid is lagging in some ways and dwindling in other cases, residents told USA TODAY.

Locals are anxious about their future on the island. Some are fishing and camping on Kaanapali Beach from day to night to grab officials' attention. Families are preparing to spend the holidays in hotel rooms. Psychologists who lost their homes in the disaster are navigating how to treat residents who share the same traumas. Many people said they lost more than their homes.

"The impact reaches beyond the loss of our homes; we've lost our bank, our doctors' office, and our business office on Front Street," Burns wrote to the County Council. One hundred people died during the fires.

Residents frustrated about a slow road to housing stability

Residents who survived the wildfires are preparing for months or longer of unstable living. More than 100 days have passed since Aug. 8 when the fires leveled most of the historic community of Lahaina.

The island, and Lahaina, in particular, holds a special place for residents who want to return or stay there, even though many potential setbacks exist. A small fishing village turned popular tourist spot, the 13,000 or so residents of Lahaina took the brunt of the fires in August.

On a November sailing trip from California to Hawaii, seven-year Maui resident Kati Hedden was on her way to what could have been Oahu. She was hesitant about returning to Maui where her condo and belongings burned down. She's lived in Lahaina for years and she's concerned about how the air quality there will affect her health.

But she felt a calling to return to Maui.

"There’s this kind of saying on Maui that she either takes you in or she spits you out," she said. "And I guess I felt Maui from across the ocean, and that I needed to come back."

Hedden recently bought a small wagon and plans to buy plastic crates to help her in what she anticipates will be multiple moves while living in federally-funded housing for what she said could be several years.

The Lahaina Intermediate School teacher is living in a hotel. She said she'll return to work after a hiatus from the island when the second semester of the school year resumes in January.

"I know I could be relocated at any time. I'm kind of at the Red Cross's mercy," she said. "I know people who had to move out of the Westin the other day."

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has the money and will to pay for wildfire survivors to live in houses instead of hotel rooms. But there aren't enough houses in the disaster area to buy.

Thousands of houses in the area are owned by people who rent them to visitors to the island for a short time. Agency staffers are trying to reach 11,000 owners of those homes to convince them to rent or lease them to 2,680 families living in hotel rooms on the island, said Bob Fenton, a FEMA spokesman.

The need is so dire that the Maui County Council plans to grant tax breaks for property renters who give preference to wildfire survivors.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green has agreed that shifting existing short-term rentals to long-term rentals could help. He's presented other solutions that could be funded with federal dollars: building small homes on people's properties and rushing existing residential building projects.

The push to relocate – for better or worse

Many who are living in or lived in hotel rooms paid for by FEMA and run by the American Red Cross told the County Council that the program is unwieldy and unpredictable. Several said they recently received notice to move their belongings to another hotel within a mere few hours or days.

Some hotels have ended their contracts with the agency recently because they don't want to host wildfire survivors during the peak holiday tourism season. Red Cross officials are assuring people they will have access to shelter in hotels for as long as they need. The program is set to end in February.

At a podium overlooking a room full of Christmas decorations, Maui officials and her Lahaina community, Lori Robertson said she's moved hotels four times with her fiancée and dogs.

"Most recently I was given five hours' notice that I would be relocated," Robertson said. "I've shed the tears and felt powerlessness."

Another resident, Shannon Edie, urged the County Council to act urgently.

"This is exhausting, defeating and downright inhumane the way we are being treated," Edie said to the council earlier this month. "My 17-year-old daughter has told me multiple times she’s tired of living like this and she just wants to go home . . . I feel helpless."

Sandra Ignacio lost her home and her acupuncture office in Dickenson Square. Her husband lost his surfboard-building workshop in Wili Ko Place. They found a place to live in a home through a friend.

"We got lucky," she wrote.

But she's frustrated by the lack of housing available to her fellow community members.

"When I consider the extreme grief and sadness, sleeplessness, anxiety, early-on breathing issues, difficulty swallowing, daily crying that I have experienced as a result of this disaster and losing everything, I cannot even begin to imagine what my fellow community members are experiencing while now facing homelessness or being forced to leave their generational community," she wrote.

Counsuelo Apolo-Gonsalves told the County Council she's devastated after hearing the stories of wildfire victims during her time volunteering at a relief hub at the Sheraton hotel for the last four months.

"It breaks my heart to know that Lahaina residents after losing everything they have to live with (and are wondering) if today will be the day they have to relocate but not know where? And some or most (are) thinking their only choice is to relocate somewhere else cause they can't afford to live here," she wrote.

Some survivors are trying to help others find solutions in the interim.

It's important to Alfy Basurto that as many families as possible stay on the island and outsiders don't buy the land or take up housing once it becomes available.

Basurto and his family are trying to build several dome-like homes on 2 ½ acres of land in Lahaina. But he said he's facing a lawsuit from a nearby homeowners association that doesn't want unhoused people living nearby.

Basurto's family home also went up in flames. Their family lived in a hotel for two months after their home burned down before they found a new place to live on Oct. 1. The mortgage on the house they've living in is twice as expensive as their old home.

Other aid is drying up

On Dec. 15, federal officials closed a disaster recovery center opened after the wildfires. The center offered help to people who lost their homes and needed to apply for federal aid. The deadline to apply for aid has passed.

The federal government is also sending fewer staffers to the island to help with recovery than they did in August. The number dropped from 600 in August to 407 in December.

A display for action is taking place at Kaanapali Beach. For the last several weeks, about 25 people a day have camped and fished where Hawaiian flags and "Defend the Land" signs stand in the sand. Jordan Ruidas, a spokesperson for the grassroots organization Lahaina Strong, said that aid has "definitely dwindled" since August, but the need remains.

"We don’t see as many convoys coming through with supplies," she said. "Hubs are starting to shut down."

Ruidas said the group will continue its protest until they are confident that state and city officials' proposals "will result in solutions, actions will become words and the uncertain and displaced victims have security."

A mental health crisis

Many Lahaina residents lost their jobs and are struggling to afford basic needs. The lack of resources has led to a mental health crisis on the island, said Lauren Ampolos, a psychologist at Illuminate Wellness Maui. Ampolos is working overtime to accommodate traumatized patients.

"It's interesting as a provider going through some of the things these people have gone through," Ampolos said. "Normally as a provider, there’s a separation between what you’re treating and your own separate experience. It's been difficult having some of the very same difficult experiences with people."

Thousands of people on the island need mental health care at a low cost or for free, she said. The practitioners at her practice can't help them all.

Several residents on the island have shared the stresses they're facing with city officials.

Lisa Jones, a 25-year-long resident of Lahaina, lost her home, job, and pets in the Maui wildfires, according to a letter she wrote to the County Council.

She was living at The Westin in West Maui before she "was evicted along with 200 other people to make room for tourists."

"I was relocated to Kahului, a town I'm not familiar with and without a vehicle, I'm completely separated from my community and those I love," she wrote. "This greatly adds to my depression. The only chance I have to get back to West Maui is if there is housing available to rent."

She was volunteering and caring for the animals in the burn zone for the Maui Humane Society, but she had to leave that role when she was forced to move hotels.

"It broke my heart to have to leave the job as I was forced from my town and support system," she said.

'Long-term housing recovery is a very, very slow thing'

The slow road to housing solutions in Maui is similar to the lag in recovery in other places in the U.S. affected by natural disasters, said Jeff Schlegelmilch, the director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the Columbia Climate School at Columbia University.

"Long-term housing recovery is a very, very slow thing," he said. "It can take years just to take first dollars in a lot of permitting decisions about recovery and things like that."

Maui is unique, he said, because locals have long faced a housing crisis because of the high rates of tourism on the island. There are many short-term rentals and timeshares there. It's caused a low housing supply and an increase in housing costs for locals.

The disaster has only exacerbated the tension between locals and tourists.

Residents don't want tourists to visit Maui because they fear they'll displace local Hawaiians who have lived on the island for generations. Yet tourism could bring in the financial aid the island needs, Schlegelmilch said.

"We have the governor saying 'We need tourism,' but then there are fresh scars here from the community," Schlegelmilch said. "It's like 'We want the tourism dollars, but also don’t want the tourists."

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Contact Kayla Jimenez at kjimenez@usatoday.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @kaylajjimenez.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Maui victims struggling with housing, mental health, government