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Randy Dadez and his family cleared the background checks last week required for them to move into a five-bedroom home in Lahaina through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s direct-lease program. 

But the Friday move-in date the family had been given came and went. No word from the housing program. No updates about where the house is located. No information about how or when they can go about moving in. 

The family’s move-in date had already been delayed several times while they waited to pass their background checks — a process that has been slow, officials say, in part due to the sheer number of displaced Lahaina residents who need to clear the checks.

More than 4,000 fire survivors are still living in 16 hotels set up as emergency shelters following the Aug. 8 fires. FEMA has secured roughly 1,500 direct-lease units for displaced residents to move into but placement has been slow going.

This time, Randy says he doesn’t know what the hold-up is.

So the family of six, plus the eldest daughter’s live-in boyfriend, remain in their three-bedroom suite at the Honua Kai Resort. As long as they have a place to live, Randy said he’s content to wait while the federal government and its partners work it all out.

“I don’t even bother anymore,” Randy says when asked if he’s tried to call FEMA to figure out what’s holding up their planned relocation out of the resort and into a neighborhood setting. 

“If these guys call, they call, and we’ll be here and ready for whatever comes next,” he says. “I’m just grateful we have this roof over our heads.”

For confidentiality reasons, Randy says he hasn’t been given the address of the house where FEMA plans to relocate his family. He says it’s on Wahikuli Road — only two streets away from the beige, two-bedroom ohana unit he had rented on Kaniau Road for $2,400 a month, including utilities, until the night of Aug. 8 when most of the working class neighborhood went up in flames.

“That’s in the burn zone,” Randy says on a recent Sunday as he pours pancake batter onto a skillet. “So, that don’t make sense neither. Is it safe? Maybe it’s safe now but when people start rebuilding and there’s dust flying around, is it safe then? So, I don’t know, we have a lot of questions.”

Randy hands his 9-year-old son Kobe a plate stacked with fluffy pancakes. Kobe eats until he is gorged. He forks a tiny bite and feeds it to his 1-year-old niece Alaiah, a peanut of a child with glittering studs in her ears who just learned how to walk.

The baby munches the pancake. Kobe fills a baby bottle with water and instructs her to drink, then orders her into his arms. He carries his niece like a sack as he walks toward the big-screen TV, where a children’s show flashes images of monkeys climbing a tree. 

Alaiah, who everyone calls Lele, points and claps at the TV. Then she wiggles to get down. Kobe tries to whisk her up again. His mom intervenes.

“Kobe, she’s not a toy,” hollers Marilou Dadez, who’s nursing a three-day migraine headache over a cup of instant coffee.

Kobe bows his head, lets Lele loose and picks up a football. 

Randy directs his son to put on his shoes. Sensing the boy’s restlessness, he invites him to come along to the Royal Lahaina Resort, where Randy is soon due to help his parents move out of their hotel room and into a FEMA rental house in Kahana.

That house, located five miles from their 1938 plantation home that burned down on Hoapili Street, has two bedrooms and a yard — a huge upgrade from a hotel room for both Randy’s parents and their lively Pomeranian. 

Does his parents’ move into a home through FEMA’s direct-lease program give him hope that his own family’s relocation could be imminent? Randy says he’s trying not to put pressure on it. When it happens, if it happens, he’ll be ready for what he views as the next step in his family’s long recovery.

“I’m not trying to be positive, I just am,” Randy says. “This is what happened. I accept it. So I’m just moving forward.”

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by grants from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.