GRIH: Schatz praises working together to address Hawaii's housing crisis | Grassroot Institute of Hawaii

Housing event showed value of collaboration

by Keli'i Akina, Ph.D., President / CEO, Grassroot Institute of Hawaii

I often tell my colleagues at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii that we owe it to our principles to know how to win.

For example, if we want to make sure we all have places to live in Hawaii, we have to find common ground with others to help make that happen, even if we might disagree with them about other important issues.

A perfect example of this took place this past Wednesday when Grassroot teamed up with the Hawai‘i Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice to host an event about how to address Hawaii’s acute housing shortage. It was titled “Building common ground: Expanding housing in Hawaii,” and featured a list of speakers that probably took some people by surprise.

Those speakers were U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz; Hawaii House Committee Chair Luke Evslin; Arjuna Heim, housing policy director for Hawai‘i Appleseed; and Ted Kefalas, director of strategic campaigns for Grassroot. Joining me as co-moderator was Will White, Hawai‘i Appleseed executive director.

If you had been there, you might not have noticed any political differences. Instead, you would have been celebrating as each speaker advocated less government regulation as the way to spur housing growth.

Sen. Schatz, who was scheduled to appear in person but had to stay in Washington, D.C., due to the federal government shutdown, said in a brief but powerful video presentation that Hawaii’s housing crisis is “a tragedy of the government’s own making.”

However, he added, “if the government got us into the mess in the first place, it can get us out of it, too. We just need to get out of our own way and let people build.”

Schatz said that “what's been really encouraging about the past few years in Hawaii” is people coming together from across the political spectrum to facilitate more homebuilding.

State Rep. Luke Evslin, who stood in for Sen. Schatz as the backup main speaker, provided a deep dive into the connection between overregulation and Hawaii’s high housing costs. He also spoke of the many reforms that have been enacted over the past three years by state lawmakers and gave insight into what the next steps could be.

Arjuna Heim of Hawai‘i Appleseed presented research on how housing growth in Hawaii has been stifled by inclusionary zoning, which requires homebuilders to include below-market-rate units in exchange for perks such as density bonuses and faster permit approvals.

And last but not least, Grassroot’s Ted Kefalas talked about how we can address both the housing crisis and economic diversification by reducing barriers to farmworker housing on agricultural lands.

In short, there was a lot more agreement to be found than disagreement. Even better, there were new ideas and a strong desire to keep up the momentum in housing reform.

The energy and excitement at the event were obvious. In fact, it was a little bit like being in the locker room of a team that’s on a winning streak. There was a real willingness to work past disagreements because we were all united in a common purpose.

And that's how we win — together.

E hana kākou! (Let's work together!)