Topics of repairing student housing at the University of Hawaiʻi dominated a more than three-hour joint committee hearing about budget priorities on Wednesday.
Senate Higher Education Committee Chair Donna Mercado Kim raised concerns over UH Mānoa’s Hale Noelani dorms, which have been vacant for seven years due to disrepair.
Kim questioned UH President David Lassner and other top university officials about why there hasn’t been an urgent need to address the aging facilities.
“I have brought this up. Students have brought this up,” Kim said. “We have articles on rats being in the dorms, about infestations, about the electricity going out, about students’ specimens getting ruined. This has come up time and time again.”
Gov. Josh Green did not include the university’s request for housing repairs in his budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year.
Instead, the UH Board of Regents is asking for $120 million from the state for student housing projects at the Mānoa campus, including for the renovation of Hale Noelani.
Senate Ways and Means Chair Donovan Dela Cruz asked what funds are used for student housing.
Jan Gouveia, the university’s vice president for administration, said the university has $25 million in a student housing account, which she called a “rainy day fund.”
When asked how much money is needed to improve the vacated dorms, Gouveia answered, “Depending how much we want to improve it.”
“Well, you want to improve it so that people can move in,” Dela Cruz said.
Kalbert Young, the university’s chief financial officer and vice president for budget and finance clarified that the $25 million comes from rental revenues that tenants have paid for the student housing over the years.
But Kim and Dela Cruz continuously argued that repairs for student housing had been neglected for years and questioned why the BOR isn’t questioning the university’s priorities over the issue.
“We’re looking forward,” Lassner said. “If you want to go back and blame me, go ahead.”
“So you think that’s acceptable? Seven years?” Dela Cruz responded. “So why did you allow it to go on that long?”
Lassner said he wasn’t “personally aware of everything going on in student housing.“
Student concerns
UH has 21 student dorms that serve 3,100 students. The average cost of dorms is from $6,278 to $12,880 per semester, according to UH Spokesperson Dan Meisenzahl.
Students have long raised concerns over aging dorms, specifically at Hale Wainani, built in 1978.
UH Mānoa engineering student Miles Jenkins said he hasn’t stayed in a dorm since 2021 after he experienced elevator issues at Hale Wainani.
“I was a little bit nervous riding it, and one day, those fears were absolutely validated,” Jenkins said, recalling that the elevators were shaking going up to the 10th floor.
“It got about halfway through the fourth and fifth floors, and the elevators stopped. From what it feels like to me, it drops me a couple of inches, then starts shaking and starts going back up again,” he said.
Miles said the elevators were closed and unusable after he reported the incident, leading him to take the stairs for the rest of that semester.
Jenson Villaflor is a junior studying American Studies. Villaflor said they chose to live in Hale Wainani because of the apartment style and cost. But they said dorms had problems ranging from mold and mildew to plumbing issues.
“But of course, how can you expect no mold or mildew in an apartment where there is no fan and thus little to no ventilation in the bathrooms, consistently broken windows that cannot open to let in the breeze that would make no air conditioning viable and humane, and questionable carpeting?” Villaflor said.
Making improvements
Last year, the university made some improvements to the dorms, including new mattresses in more than 300 rooms, improved wifi, repaired windows and air conditions, and other repairs.
The university opened the Atherton Residents for Innovative Student Entrepreneurs (RISE) building near UH Mānoa last year. It’s a six-story facility with 10,000 square feet of innovation space for meetings and classrooms. It can hold about 374 students.
The $70 million project was funded with private, non-taxpayer money.
For Hale Noelani, Meisenzahl said in an email that the facilities fell into disrepair under the previous housing director.
“Our priorities now are on the spaces students currently live in, and that inventory current online remains online,” he wrote.
UH also hired an outside firm – Ross Murakami, Partner, KMH LLC – to help develop plans to improve student housing facilities.
