About 40% of Hawaiʻi’s residents are renters. State lawmakers are considering two measures that aim to improve protections for tenants and provide resources to better understand their rights.
The Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs receives about 5,000 calls a year to its Landlord-Tenant Information Center.
“It's a pretty high call volume,” said Emma Olsen, an Office of Consumer Protection enforcement attorney.
“We get a lot of calls about security deposits, evictions, repairs, breaking the lease, and we take note of the different issues that pop up from year to year to kind of drive where we need to focus our efforts on, maybe updating the code or education and outreach.”
Although the department offers a landlord-tenant handbook, it’s only in English. Rep. Tina Grandinetti introduced a measure that would require the department to publish a more digestible notice of tenant rights in multiple languages.
“The idea behind this notice of tenant rights is to condense the most fundamental rights that tenants have into very clear and accessible language and then to translate that into other languages,” she said.
“We know many renters in Hawaiʻi are from immigrant communities. And at the moment, the state doesn't provide access to those resources in many of those common languages.”
The measure would also require landlords to give tenants the notice of rights when they sign the lease.
Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice Housing Director Arjuna Heim explained that the landlord-tenant code can be difficult to navigate – even for someone experienced in the topic.
“I've been doing this work in Honolulu for gosh, five years now,” she said. “So I make my living understanding and reading housing policy, including the landlord-tenant code.”
Even she had a situation where she was trying to get her security deposit back from her landlord. Heim called the Landlord-Tenant Information Center for guidance. In the end, she still had to push her property managers to comply with the law.
She explained that the bill could be a resource for landlords as well.
“An accessible landlord-tenant code is good for tenants; it's good for mom-and-pop landlords,” Heim said.
“Quite frankly, the corporate landlords need a refresher on what the law is as well, because just 'cause your company policy isn't to do something, doesn't mean you can kind of spit in the face of the law.”
Olsen explained that the department reached out for translation services for its 38-page landlord-tenant handbook. The quote was almost $9,000 for the translation into Chinese, Marshallese, Korean and Chuukese. Her department is also requesting additional funds if the bill passes.
The Hawaiʻi Association of Realtors submitted testimony raising concerns about the notice of tenant rights oversimplifying the landlord-tenant code, but wrote that their organization supports greater access to tenant resources.
“Because the Landlord-Tenant Code is highly complex, condensing tenant rights into a standalone notice may result in important information being lost or misinterpreted,” it wrote.
“Ensuring that the most current notice is provided, if updated annually, could be challenging especially for mom-and-pop housing providers.”
Housing assurances for displaced tenants
Another measure also introduced by Grandinetti would create baseline protections for tenants being displaced by the construction of a new affordable housing development that receives building exemptions through state law.
New housing projects can qualify for the 201H process, which grants exemptions to many planning, zoning and land use requirements – if they reserve over half the building for those making 140% of the annual median income or less.
The bill would require the developer using the 201H process to provide three months of rent for displaced residents and give them the right of first-offer on the new building.
“Because the role that we play in those developments, we also have a responsibility to make sure that people are not adversely affected by them,” Grandinetti said.
“I'm not sure we've done the best job at that so far, and I want us to move forward … ensuring that we are treating everyone with dignity and making sure that they still get to call these places home. … Development doesn't have to mean displacement.”
Last year, Grandinetti introduced a similar measure that stalled in the final days of the legislative session, despite the Hawaiʻi Housing Finance and Development Corporation’s support.
Both measures have passed out of the House and will next go to the Senate for consideration.
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