A bill that would have raised the taxes to help fund a homeless program in the state has died in this year's Legislative session.
Senate Bill 362would have raised the conveyance tax by a percentage point for condos, houses and other properties selling for $2 million or more.
The added revenue would have not only gone to new homeless services, but also to land conservation, affordable housing developments and the state general fund.
"When we talk about services, it starts with the basic vital things like medication, mental health services, maybe drug rehab," said Summer Yadao, a member of the Hawaiʻi Housing Affordability Coalition.
"But the foundation for all of those things is always a stable place to live," Yadao said.
In addition to those services, the funding would have also gone towards expanding state programs to house people, such as with the use of housing vouchers.
SB 362 adopted similar language from another measure,SB 678, that also proposed raising the state's luxury home sales tax. However, that proposal failed to advance after not getting a hearing in the Senate's housing committee earlier this session.
SB 362 also met the same fate last week, missing a key deadline to get a hearing — this time at the House Finance committee.
For advocates working to solve homelessness in the state, the measure's demise continues an ongoing sense of uncertainty for long-term solutions.
"There are a lot of other things also moving this session, but they relied on one-time funding," said Kenna StormoGipson, the housing policy director for the Hawaiʻi Budget and Policy Center.
"There was nothing else being proposed that would create permanent new funding and create certainty that we will still have the ability to fund housing three, four, five years from now, and we can hire staff," StormoGipson said.
Throughout the Legislative session, advocates testified their concerns about an increasing amount of case workers leaving the field. They cited employees "burning out," due to growing demands and needs from individuals, as well as the growing financial struggle to support themselves and their families.
"If we're only building things, but you're not also hiring people to manage and maintain and build programs, then it's not going to work over the long term," StormoGipson said.
The bill did have its opponents. One of them was the Land Use Research Foundation of Hawaiʻi, a nonprofit trade group whose members include landowners and developers.
While the group supports addressing homelessness in the state, it questioned whether or not raising the conveyance tax was the right way to fund services.
The group questioned the bill's legality, saying the conveyance tax was never intended to generate revenue — and said the bill would impact agricultural, commercial and rental housing properties. It also warned of unintended consequences for local residents and the economy.
But advocates say the tax is a one-time expense, and would mostly impact non-local investors. StormoGipson told HPR that raising the tax wouldn't impact a majority of homeowners, because it would have applied to properties listed over $2 million.
Yadao added that the state's conveyance tax hasn't been touched since 2009. "That's way overdue to be updated to our current crisis situation."
Yadao and StormoGipson hope to continue the conversation of having a permanent funding source for homeless services.
"The fact that the bill died is that we are now waiting longer, especially for folks who are homeless, to get staff support, to get the services, to get the vouchers, to get the rapid rehousing that they need," StormoGipson said.
She said she is hopeful additional financial support will be added to Gov. Josh Green's budget, which still needs to be finalized.
