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On his final morning in Lahaina, Ron Proctor tidied his government-sponsored hotel room and tucked his few belongings into a backpack. 

With the pack slung over his shoulder, a roller bag of golf clubs in one hand and his walking cane in the other, he rode the elevator to the lobby of the Royal Lahaina Resort, which had been his makeshift home for much of the last eight months. 

But on Tuesday Proctor had a one-way ticket to California and a plane to catch. At 11 a.m., one of his last remaining friends who hadn’t left the island following the destructive wildfires picked him up in his car and drove him to Kahului Airport.

“What I came here for isn’t here anymore,” he said. 

A looming question more than eight months after the Lahaina wildfire is how many survivors of the devastating event will find new homes and new jobs in order to remain on the island? 

Widespread damage caused by the fire has only made preexisting problems worse: a water shortage, persistent drought, uncontrolled invasive grasses and, perhaps most urgent, an islandwide affordable housing shortage that’s hampering the pace at which survivors can recover, even with the help of government assistance.

There’s no official count of the number of people who’ve left Maui like Proctor due to wildfire losses. But there are estimates.

The roughly calculates that at least 1,500 people have moved away from Maui County since the August fires. And the said in its February economic forecast that Maui County had . 

UHERO researchers predict a population dip of 2,300 people, or 1.4% of the county’s total population, by the end of 2024, according to the report. By comparison, the county lost 1,400 households, or 0.9% of its population, in 2023.

It’s not just a sentimental issue but an economic one. A significant population decline in West Maui could flatline the region’s job and income growth and give rise to labor shortages for years to come.

“I got to live the dream out here for awhile and I guess I’m lucky for that,” Proctor said. “Now the rents are unaffordable. The whole vibe of the island has changed. I don’t know if it’s ever going to be the way it was again.”

The course of Proctor’s life changed on Aug. 8 when the deadliest American wildfire in more than a century incinerated his one-bedroom unit at the Front Street Apartments, along with his car and most of his belongings.

The months since have been chaotic for the 71-year-old who spent weeks sleeping on an air mattress at the War Memorial gymnasium in Wailuku until the Federal Emergency Management Agency moved him into a boxy hotel room without a kitchen, fronting a wide stretch of West Maui beach. 

With his friends dispersed in more than a dozen FEMA-funded hotels, his favorite haunts burned down and no wheels to get around, Proctor battled loneliness and isolation. He turned the tiny desk in the corner of his hotel room into a tequila bar, slipping into a daily habit of margaritas at happy hour.

Before long, he found himself imbibing at any hour. 

The future looked uncertain and Proctor was depressed. Then, in December, Proctor says he set himself straight to reprise the role of Santa Claus. He’d long played the fabled role at West Maui shopping malls and resorts.

The bespoke suit he usually wore had burned up in the fire. And so, after some hemming and hawing, he went on Amazon and ordered a new suit, boots, gloves, eyeglasses and jingle bells.

When he donned the Santa gear, despite so many personal losses, he found he could not be sad. But after the holidays, his Christmas cheer waned. Proctor started day drinking again.

In March, Proctor said FEMA offered him a year-long lease at a studio apartment in Wailuku. After doing a drive-by, he turned it down.

The apartment was nowhere near the beach. And its bland surroundings were nothing like Lahaina’s festive Front Street. He tried to imagine living in the apartment, but it just wasn’t the life he’d imagined for himself when he’d moved from California to Maui 12 years earlier.

Then one day Proctor’s 55-year-old daughter called: “Why don’t you move back, Dad?”

It was her umpteenth attempt at coaxing him to give up island life and move in with her in California. This time, Proctor gave in.

‘Every Day A Local Family Moves Away’

Talk of local families fleeing Maui en masse following the Lahaina wildfire is widespread around dinner tables, on social media and at government meetings. But pinning down specific numbers is difficult.

“Every day a local family moves away,” Tamara Paltin, who represents West Maui on the nine-member Maui County Council, recently said at a council meeting. In January, she took turns hoisting a handmade sign with the same message at a Lahaina unity march attended by thousands of people.

Paltin did not have statistics on the exit of local families from the island, but on Thursday she easily listed more than a half-dozen friends and acquaintances who’d left for Las Vegas, North Carolina, Florida, Molokai or Lanai.

“Every time I turn around someone I know has moved.” she said.

Proctor says all but a couple of the three dozen people in his Lahaina social circle have left the island for cheaper housing or better job opportunities on the mainland. Most of them, he said, are restaurant industry workers who simply couldn’t bounce back after losing their home and job in the Lahaina fire.

Official data on Maui population trends won’t be available until March, when the U.S. Census Bureau is expected to report how many people moved off the island between July 1 and June 30. Statewide migration data will be available in December.

“This is a hard number,” state economist Eugene Tian said. “We normally wait for the Census Bureau because the Census Bureau is the authority for population estimates. But it doesn’t mean that everyone who left Maui after the wildfire left due to the fire.”

Maui County’s population has been contracting for years. There was a net loss of about 500 people in the seven months of 2023 that preceded the August fires, according to Tian.

One way of gleaning a hint of the shape of Maui’s post-fire population change is to examine state unemployment insurance claims data.

The number of new weekly claims made by Maui County residents living out of state has increased to 26 from 21 in the aftermath of the August wildfires, according to Tian. This amounts to a total increase of roughly 170 people who’ve made unemployment claims from other states since the Aug. 8 fires. 

“It’s a small increase, but it’s a way to see what’s happening now,” Tian said.  

The metric, however, doesn’t account for Maui residents with claims who’ve relocated to other islands within the state. And it doesn’t account for people who left the county without making unemployment claims.

‘Hell Of A Way To Get The Boot’

When Proctor’s friend of over a decade pulled up his car to Kahului Airport’s passenger drop-off curb on Tuesday, the reality of his imminent departure from the town and island he loves began to set in.

“Well, my friend, it’s been a great 12 years,” Proctor said to the man who’d been his golfing partner since he arrived on Maui the day after his birthday in January 2012.

Back then, Proctor was a new divorcee, looking for sun, fun and a chance to reinvent himself in a new place. Maui is known to attract free-spirited transients who are seeking a taste of island life. And Lahaina, where Proctor quickly took up residence, was largely a town of renters with a healthy supply of rooms for rent in 2012 when he arrived.

For years he reveled in mornings spent on the beach, long afternoons on the golf course and nights partaking in the bar scene. He was West Maui’s unofficial Santa Claus who looked the part year-round. And he was proud to be a waiter on the inaugural staff that opened the famed Fleetwoods on Front Street.

Now, after the trauma of a treacherous escape on foot from the fire, Proctor’s returning to California in search of peace of mind and housing stability — two things that he said are in short supply in post-fire Lahaina.

At the airport curb Tuesday afternoon, Proctor and his old friend shared a long embrace.

“Hate to go,” Proctor said.

“Hell of a way to get the boot,” his friend replied.

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