Maui mayor to veto housing bill

[ashlover]

Affordable Housing on Maui

Lesley Bruce of Hana pointed to local residents who are forced to live on the beach because they don't have a home.Joy's Cold-hearted Truthful Opinion

Comments

[manoababooze]

While I feel that many of the homeless are drug adled or work averse, the Homelessness crisis on Maui is more complex than just that. There isa critical shortage of rental housing that a fastfood worker can afford. If someone is making the minimum wage, they would have to do the following: Find a place they can afford, try to compete with other people, be selected by picky owners or managers, get extra work/jobs to pay for the added expense of living somewhere (utilities come to mind), and then see if they can make the rent on a monthly basis. A large problem is the out of control real estate speculation that went on in the last two years. Untamed greed has been a problem with Maui from when my Grandmother lived there. Many places were purchased as investments by people who don't know the simple concepts of true cost of ownership and the true return on investment.
If you think a homelessness problem is bad - wait for the foreclosure wave that may shake some of our banks to their core! I have no pity for the greedy "investors" who pushed the market beyond where I left it and squeezed many people out of the market - driving some to drugs.

[teruchan]

A lot of my line employees at the hotel have two jobs just so they can support themselves here on Maui. (I even knew a couple of people who have/had THREE jobs!) Granted, some of them do send money home to the Phillipines. But the majority dono't and it's sad to see some of them go through so much just to get by.