Hawaiʻi has received $6.6 million in federal funds to lower the cost of housing.
It’s part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing $85 million program meant to find and fix barriers to affordable housing production.
The state will focus on financing infrastructure improvement projects such as wastewater management, roads, and renewable energy through a special bank.
It will also fund affordable housing projects and analyze how state and county building regulations can be altered to make building easier.
U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz said it’s important that the state use this money to ease the burden to build more housing.
“It has taken three, four, five decades to create a thicket of regulations and processes and procedures that make it nearly impossible for us to create the thing that we want,” he said.
“It is not something we can wave a wand at and fix instantaneously, but the most important thing that we have now that we didn't have a year ago is political will and a recognition that this problem isn't made up.”
The state originally applied for $9 million from the program, and is now going back to HUD to figure out how to redistribute the funds it was given to reflect the change.
Out of the 21 municipalities nationwide that received funding, Hawaiʻi received the second largest amount after Los Angeles.
Hawaiʻi will also be able to apply for a future round of federal funding.
