Posted on: Friday, January 14, 2005

Vacant housing frustrates officials

By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer

While housing shortages on the Big Island have reached a "crisis stage," many units in the state-run Lanakila housing project in central Hilo have been vacant for five years and may remain so for another two years, according to testimony yesterday at the Legislature.

"It's just very frustrating to have years and years go by and still see those units vacant right in the middle of town," Steve Bader, executive director of the East Hawaii Coalition for the Homeless, told members of the state Senate Committee on Consumer Protection and Housing.

"In 2001, (state) staff said the units would be ready for occupancy in 2003. Then in 2003 they said it would be 2005. Now it's 2005 and they're saying 2007," Bader told the committee.

The vacancy problem is one of many afflicting the state's public housing agency, the Housing and Community Development Corp. of Hawai'i, and committee chairman Sen. Ronald Menor, D-17th Dist. (Mililani, Waipi'o), said yesterday the agency needs a dramatic overhaul.

He said he will recommend legislation splitting HCDCH into two agencies, one to manage existing housing and the other to assume "housing finance, development and land reform" functions.

Federal officials recommended the state consider such a change last June when HCDCH was formally declared a "troubled" housing agency by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD demanded that HCDCH fix many glaring deficiencies in management by September of this year or face loss of federal funding or even a federal takeover of the state agency.

Menor's proposal would return state housing programs to the same administrative setup that existed before 1998, when the Hawaii Housing Authority and the Housing Finance and Development Corp. were merged to form HCDCH.

In addressing the vacant housing issue yesterday before Menor's committee, HCDCH executive director Stephanie Aveiro said she didn't have an immediate explanation for why the Lanakila units have been vacant for so long, but she noted that many vacant units around the state have severe structural or infrastructural problems that don't lend themselves to a quick fix.

The average "turnaround time" for vacant public housing units — when one tenant moves out and another moves in — is 210 days, Aveiro said. The figure is skewed by many units that aren't in the "quick fix" category and have been vacant for 1,000 days or more, Aveiro said.

The federal government, which subsidizes 5,300 housing units managed by the state, wants the turnaround time reduced to 30 days and the state has a goal of 25 days, Aveiro said. At present, 470 of the 5,300 federal units are vacant, Aveiro testified.

The state manages another 2,700 public housing units without federal assistance and many of those units "are in dire need of repair," she said.

HCDCH will ask the Legislature for another $10 million to spend on refurbishing state-owned public housing, as well as additional funds to hire 10 more people to meet pressing federal demands for improvements at the state agency, Aveiro said.

The problems are daunting but Aveiro said HCDCH is making progress. Lack of money is the biggest obstacle to improvement, she said, noting that a survey of public housing stock in Hawai'i conducted two years ago estimated it would cost $655 million to adequately refurbish the federal housing units here.

"We receive $10 million to $12 million a year" in federal capital improvement funds, Aveiro said.

Menor pressed Aveiro as to why HCDCH hadn't made necessary improvements when HUD first warned the local agency in November 2002 that it was facing serious financial consequences from the federal government.

Aveiro, who was named executive director in December 2003, said: "I don't know. I have asked myself the same question."

Committee member Sen. Gary Hooser, D-7th Dist. (Kaua'i, Ni'ihau), said legislators are concerned about whether HCDCH management is meeting its responsibilities.

"We need to have confidence that you have it under control," Hooser said.

Reach Jim Dooley at 535-2447 or jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.