West
As Hawaiians struggle to find affordable housing after Lahaina wildfire, lawmakers reconsider vacation rentals
Amy Chadwick spent years scrimping and saving as a single mother of two to buy a house in the town of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui. But after a devastating fire leveled Lahaina in August and reduced Chadwick’s home to white dust, the cheapest rental she and her now-husband could find for their family and dogs cost $10,000 a month.
Chadwick, a fine-dining server, moved to Florida where she could stretch her homeowners insurance dollars. She’s worried Maui’s exorbitant rental prices, driven in part by vacation rentals that hog a limited housing supply, will hollow out her tight-knit town.
Most people in Lahaina work for hotels, restaurants and tour companies and can’t afford $5,000 to $10,000 a month in rent, she said.
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“You’re pushing out an entire community of service industry people. So no one’s going to be able to support the tourism that you’re putting ahead of your community,” Chadwick said by phone from her new home in Satellite Beach on Florida’s Space Coast. “Nothing good is going to come of it unless they take a serious stance, putting their foot down and really regulating these short-term rentals.”
The Aug. 8 wildfire killed 101 people and destroyed housing for 6,200 families, amplifying Maui’s already acute housing shortage and laying bare the enormous presence of vacation rentals in Lahaina. It reminded lawmakers that short-term rentals are an issue across Hawaii, prompting them to consider bills that would give counties the authority to phase them out.
Gov. Josh Green got so frustrated he blurted out an expletive during a recent news conference.
The Rev. Ai Hironaka, resident minister of the Lahaina Hongwanji Mission, walks in the parking lot of his temple and residence on Dec. 7, 2023, that was destroyed by wildfire in Lahaina, Hawaii. An acute housing shortage hitting fire survivors on the Hawaiian island of Maui is squeezing out residents even as they try to overcome the loss of loved ones, their homes and their community. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson, File)
“This fire uncovered a clear truth, which is we have too many short-term rentals owned by too many individuals on the mainland and it is b———t,” Green said. “And our people deserve housing, here.”
Vacation rentals are a popular alternative to hotels for those seeking kitchens, lower costs and opportunities to sample everyday island life. Supporters say they boost tourism, the state’s biggest employer. Critics revile them for inflating housing costs, upending neighborhoods and contributing to the forces pushing locals and Native Hawaiians to leave Hawaii for less expensive states.
This migration has become a major concern in Lahaina. The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, a nonprofit, estimates at least 1,500 households — or a quarter of those who lost their homes — have left since the August wildfire.
The blaze burned single family homes and apartments in and around downtown, which is the core of Lahaina’s residential housing. An analysis by the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization found a relatively low 7.5% of units there were vacation rentals as of February 2023.
Lahaina neighborhoods spared by the fire have a much higher ratio of vacation rentals: About half the housing in Napili, about 7 miles north of the burn zone, is short-term rentals.
Napili is where Chadwick thought she found a place to buy when she first went house hunting in 2016. But a Canadian woman secured it with a cash offer and turned it into a vacation rental.
Also outside the burn zone are dozens of short-term rental condominium buildings erected decades ago on land zoned for apartments.
In 1992, Maui County explicitly allowed owners in these buildings to rent units for less than 180 days at a time even without short-term rental permits. Since November, activists have occupied the beach in front of Lahaina’s biggest hotels to push the mayor or governor to use their emergency powers to revoke this exemption.
Money is a powerful incentive for owners to rent to travelers: a 2016 report prepared for the state found a Honolulu vacation rental generates 3.5 times the revenue of a long-term rental.
State Rep. Luke Evslin, the Housing Committee chair, said Maui and Kauai counties have suffered net losses of residential housing in recent years thanks to a paucity of new construction and the conversion of so many homes to short-term rentals.
“Every alarm bell we have should be ringing when we’re literally going backwards in our goal to provide more housing in Hawaii,” he said.
In his own Kauai district, Evslin sees people leaving, becoming homeless or working three jobs to stay afloat.
The Democrat was one of 47 House members who co-sponsored one version of legislation that would allow short-term rentals to be phased out. One objective is to give counties more power after a U.S. judge ruled in 2022 that Honolulu violated state law when it attempted to prohibit rentals for less than 90 days. Evslin said that decision left Hawaii’s counties with limited tools, such as property taxes, to control vacation rentals.
Lawmakers also considered trying to boost Hawaii’s housing supply by forcing counties to allow more houses to be built on individual lots. But they watered down the measure after local officials said they were already exploring the idea.
Short-term rental owners said a phase-out would violate their property rights and take their property without compensation, potentially pushing them into foreclosure. Some predicted legal challenges.
Alicia Humiston, president of the Rentals by Owner Awareness Association, said some areas in West Maui were designed for travelers and therefore lack schools and other infrastructure families need.
“This area in West Maui that is sort of like this resort apartment zone — that’s all north of Lahaina — it was never built to be local living,” Humiston said.
One housing advocate argues that just because a community allowed vacation rentals decades ago doesn’t mean it still needs to now.
“We are not living in the 1990s or in the 1970s,” said Sterling Higa, executive director of Housing Hawaii’s Future. Counties “should have the authority to look at existing laws and reform them as necessary to provide for the public good.”
Courtney Lazo, a real estate agent who is part of Lahaina Strong, the group occupying Kaanapali Beach, said tourists can stay in her hometown now but many locals can’t.
“How do you expect a community to recover and heal and move forward when the people who make Lahaina, Lahaina, aren’t even there anymore?” she said at a recent news conference as her voice quivered. “They’re moving away.”
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Montana
Bring your Treasures to the Montana Appraisal Fair in Billings
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Nevada
Nevada first responders receive autism training to improve emergency response
LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — First responders from across Nevada gathered for a free training session on how to better recognize and respond to people on the autism spectrum as part of a broader push following the passage of Senate Bill 380 last year.
The free, day-long session, hosted by the Autism Coalition of Nevada, brought together police, firefighters, and emergency personnel from agencies statewide for what organizers call a “train-the-trainer” model. It equipped attendees with tools they can take back to their departments and share with others.
The training is designed to help first responders identify key behaviors associated with autism, such as delayed responses, lack of eye contact, or repetition, and adjust their approach in high-pressure situations where those behaviors could otherwise be misinterpreted.
“The training is to help them understand what’s in front of them, which is a person on the spectrum, and not somebody that’s being combative or argumentative,” said Michelle Scott-Lewing, president of the Autism Coalition of Nevada.
Advocates said misunderstandings can happen frequently, sometimes leading to unnecessary arrests, and this type of education is aimed at reducing those outcomes.
Senate Bill 380, signed into law by Governor Joe Lombardo, requires autism-specific training for first responders and adds guidance around how officers should be educated on recognizing and interacting with individuals on the spectrum, marking a significant step toward more consistent awareness across agencies.
The session was led by First Responder Autism Training, a national program that travels the country teaching officers and emergency crews how to recognize autism indicators and respond appropriately, with real-world scenarios that emphasize slowing down and de-escalating.
Henderson police said their officers already receive training on a range of mental health conditions, but this builds on that foundation with a more focused approach.
“For officers to be able to recognize those signs and be able to understand like, hey, this person, even though they’re not talking to me or they’re not doing what I’m saying, that doesn’t mean they’re non-compliant,” Deputy Chief Matthew Murnane with HPD said. “It just means maybe, hey, there’s something else going on there.”
Organizers said they want to expand the training with an additional session this year in Northern Nevada, aiming to make it more accessible statewide and ensure more first responders have the tools needed to safely handle interactions involving people on the spectrum.
New Mexico
Decision 2026: Gubernatorial candidates discuss education and other topics during second forum
RIO RANCHO, N.M. — We won’t know who New Mexico’s next governor will be until November, but you’ll be deciding who will be on that ballot in just five weeks.
When it comes to the race for governor there are 6 candidates. Tuesday, the community got more insight into their platforms during a forum held at Rio Rancho Public School headquarters.
They touched on a lot of topics: the economy, crime, healthcare and more but one in particular kept coming up: education. In last week’s forum in Santa Fe, they mainly focused on the economy.
Five candidates participated in the forum: Republicans Gregg Hull, Duke Rodriguez and Doug Turner and Democrats Deb Haaland and Sam Bregman. Independent candidate Ken Miyagishima did not participate.
All five candidates say when it comes to education, it’s an issue New Mexico is failing at and pointed to the fact that our state ranks last across the nation.
Hull and Turner both believe part of the answer is stopping what they called “social promotion” which means letting a child go to the next grade even if they don’t meet certain goal posts like reading.
“I’m going to be very, very focused on getting Career, Technical Education into all of our school districts, any school district that wants it, we need to be a partner with that and make sure that we’re meeting the needs of the workforce,” Hull said.
“We can’t just promote kids throughout the their school career, because we end up with a workforce that nobody can hire. So if we don’t focus on our children at all levels, we will be we will continue to fail,” Turner said.
Meanwhile, Rodriguez believes the answer is in offering more programs.
“You can’t have better students without taking care of your teachers, which includes funding their pension plan. We have got to go back to the basics and make our students value their education, make the parents realize the importance,” Rodriguez said.
Both Democrats Haaland and Bregman believe more intervention from educators is needed.
“Our kids need to read sooner. That’s why I want to put reading coaches in the classrooms and make sure that teachers can identify kids that need the help, so that we can make sure that they are ready to go on to the next grade, and that gives builds their confidence,” Haaland said.
“When a first and second grader isn’t up to that grade level, we need to rush in with ped, get them the help they need right away, so that we don’t end up in a situation where they’re at third grade not reading at grade level, at third grade, not doing math at that level,” Bregman said.
All five candidates will be on the primary ballot which will be held June 2.
The Republican and Democratic nominees will face independent Ken Miyagishima — if he gets more than 14,000 signatures and files on June 25, per the Secretary of State’s office.
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