Economic and Housing Recovery Three Years After the Maui Wildfires: Findings from the Maui Recovery Survey

by Daniela Bond-Smith, Sophia Davis, and Caleb Wood, UHERO, Aug 11, 2026

Three years after the August 2023 wildfires on Maui, substantial steps forward have been made, but important gaps remain. Housing has stabilized for many affected families, with more households in permanent homes and some able to return to their communities. But employment and incomes have moved little over the past year. This report presents findings from the Maui Recovery Survey, an ongoing survey of people who lived, worked, or owned a business in West Maui or Kula at the time of the disaster.

Executive Summary

Three years after the August 2023 wildfires on Maui, substantial steps forward have been made, but important gaps remain. Housing has stabilized for many affected families, with more households in permanent homes and some able to return to their communities. But employment and incomes have moved little over the past year. This report presents findings from the Maui Recovery Survey, an ongoing survey of people who lived, worked, or owned a business in West Maui or Kula at the time of the disaster.

Displacement has declined modestly. The share of households no longer displaced rose modestly over the past year, and fewer are displaced from both their home and West Maui. Of those displaced from both their home and West Maui in early 2025, about one in six have returned to West Maui but not yet to their home. Displacement also continues to extend beyond the burn area, where the share displaced from their home but remaining in the same area has risen.

Housing stability has continued to improve. Homeownership has recovered slightly from 38% to 42%. For some, relief programs met needs that predated the fires. About 60% of those who were unhoused or in informal arrangements before the disaster had a rental by 2025, and a further 20% by 2026. About two-thirds of fire-affected households now live in permanent housing, up from just over half in early 2025. Households are also moving far less than in the first two years, and among those still in temporary arrangements the share at the same address for more than a year has tripled to almost two-thirds. However, overall rates of temporary and unstable housing remain elevated.

Rental costs have eased for smaller properties, but remain heightened for larger units. Median rent for studios and one-bedrooms has fallen to roughly its pre-fire level by May 2026. Rents for larger units have stayed broadly flat and well above pre-disaster levels. Overall, almost half of fire-affected renters now pay less than before the fires (largely because of rental assistance), but at the same time almost 40% pay more. The share of households receiving full or near-full rental assistance has more than halved, from 37% in January 2025 to 15% in May 2026.

Employment continues to be an area of limited progress. 42% of fire-affected people work full-time, unchanged from a year earlier and still well below the 62% who did so before the fires. Unemployment has fallen from 10% to 8%, but exits from the labor market through retirement or no longer seeking work have risen from 26% to 30%. Even among working-age people, more than one and a half times as many are out of the labor force as before the disaster. Among people employed in the visitor industry before the fires, about two-thirds still work in the sector, with little change over the last year.

Poverty levels have risen since the wildfires, but some improvements are emerging. The share of households in poverty has declined modestly over the past year but remains markedly above pre-fire levels, and most households are still poorer than before. The share of households above but near the poverty threshold has increased the most after the wildfires, but it has also been on a downward trajectory in the last few months.

Unmet needs have declined slightly, but assistance has fallen substantially. Financial assistance remains the most frequently reported need. FEMA assistance halved over the last year and a half. Other government assistance has also declined, and only half as many people now receive help from community organizations compared with the start of 2025. About half of fire-affected people received no assistance of any kind in May 2026, almost double the share a year earlier. Some of this decline may reflect households regaining stability, but the scale suggests assistance has likely also fallen for households who still need it.

With support from the Hawai‘i Community Foundation, UHERO will continue to monitor and analyze the progress of the recovery in its fourth year.

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