A new housing website is helping Maui families while also offering critical real-time insights into the island’s housing crisis.
“The goal of the project is to make it as easy as possible for landlords and homeowners to connect directly with our fire survivors who need long-term housing,” said Matt Jachowski, a Native Hawaiian software developer born and raised on Maui. He’s talking about a new web app he just built and released — Maui Hale Match.
The sign-up process takes just a few minutes for both landlords and renters.
“Basically they're matching on location, number of people, number of bedrooms, whether they have pets or not, and whether their rent parameters are in line,” he said.
Immediately after the fire, Jachowski opened up his own home to families in need. But he says it took him more than a week to connect with the right fit.
Meanwhile, his sister was volunteering with Maui Rapid Response, gathering data on the needs of fire victims — many of which centered around housing. They had two Google sheets – one for landlords, and one for those needing housing. He called it a "painstaking" process.
Jachowski spent hundreds of hours of his own time compiling their data and collecting his own to try to streamline the process. Now, his project is supported by Maui Rapid Response and offers compelling statistics on Maui’s housing crisis.
He hopes politicians are paying attention.
“Basically everyone knows that rent is too expensive,” Jachowski said. “As far as I can tell, none of these leaders have ever had someone tell them how much is too expensive. And that's what my data is showing and if you don't know exactly how much is too expensive, you can't even begin to craft an effective solution to close that gap.”
When signing up on the platform, personal information is private until there is a mutual agreement to pursue a housing offer. Those requesting housing enter their name, email, location and size needs, and what they’re able to pay in rent.
Homeowners share similar information. Landlords then get a list of displaced families whose parameters fit what they’re offering. Once the homeowner selects a match, the family is notified, and they can choose to connect with the landlord. The rest of the negotiations take place outside of the platform.
Jachowski’s data has revealed a glaring disparity. The difference between what most families can afford, and the rent at which many homes are listed is often $700 to $1,500. That’s not including many homes priced at more than $10,000 per month, which Jachowski excluded from the data.
“There's people sitting on empty homes in West Maui, the number one place where people want to be empty homes,” he explained. “And these people think it's reasonable to charge them $10,000, $12,000 a month in rent. And they're confused why no one will pay that, and at the same time they're saying, ‘Well, I can't go lower because I have tourists who will pay these rates.'”
Maui Hale Match launched on Oct. 7, and as of Oct. 18, it has received 466 housing requests, representing more than 1,500 individuals. The vast majority of requests are from those currently housed in hotels.
Sterling Higa is the executive director of Housing Hawaii’s Future. It’s a nonprofit aimed at building a younger generation educated and engaged to address the state’s housing issues.
“Maui faces an extreme version of our state housing crisis,” he said. “The rental and for-sale prices are extremely high and inventory is very low. So not only are prices high, but if you're looking for a rental or if you're looking to buy, there are only a few units on the market at any price point."
"This has obviously been made worse with the loss of 1,800 or more homes in Lāhainā and so at this point, you have at least 7,000 people displaced who need housing and they're entering into a housing market that already was unaffordable for most people on Maui.”
Higa describes Hawaiʻi as a “data desert,” lacking accurate, up-to-date housing information. The Hawaiʻi Housing Planning Study is completed every five years by the Hawaiʻi Housing Finance Development Corporation. It was last updated in 2019.
Higa praises Jachowski’s project for providing critical, current information.
He believes there are only two paths forward to solve the housing crisis.
“Either you make more inventory available by reallocating housing that's either vacant or in the short-term rental category into long-term rentals or for sale, or you add thousands of new housing units,” Higa said. “And a mix of both approaches is going to be necessary given the scale of the crisis. We're a state that has underbuilt housing for decades. So even with this crisis, the odds that we will solve the crisis purely by building thousands of new housing units in the next couple of years is unlikely. But we still have to try.”
What do Maui residents being forced to move away mean for the community? Higa says it will change Maui.
“I think we will lose thousands of people,” he estimates. “Thousands of people will leave Maui and each of those people is enmeshed in a web of relationships with friends, with family, through work. And you're essentially ripping apart the fabric of Maui. So you have a fire which has singed that fabric and now as thousands of people make the tough decision to leave, you're essentially tearing what remains of the fabric of Maui.”
Jachowski says he is making every leader and lawmaker he can aware of his data, hoping it will make a difference.
“The reality is unless government uses this data and does something about this soon with either money or regulation, the only option for these thousands of displaced families over the next several months is to stay in the hotels and Airbnbs as long as they can, move off island, or become homeless,” Jachowski told HPR. “There are no other options.”
