First Families Move Into Temporary FEMA Housing For Maui Fire Survivors
The rent will be covered for the first few months by continued emergency assistance, but tenants must begin paying in March.
More than 15 months after losing their home in the Lahaina wildfire, Ane and Lafaelle Folaumoeloa and their three children finally have moved back to their old neighborhood.
The family became the first tenants in a temporary housing complex for survivors who have been shuttling between hotels and other emergency lodging since the Aug. 8, 2023, blaze that razed much of the historic Maui town.
鈥淲e lost everything, we couldn鈥檛 save anything,鈥 Ane Folaumoeloa said, recalling the destruction of the home her family rented at Komo Mai Street, just a couple blocks away from her family’s new three-bedroom house at the Kilohana Temporary Group Housing complex.
The development is an initiative by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assemble 169 modular houses on a 34-acre property that had been set aside as state-owned agricultural land at Fleming Road and Malo Street.
The Lahaina fire destroyed about 2,200 homes and other buildings, killing at least 102 people and displacing about 12,000 others.
FEMA and the U.S. Small Business Administration have approved more than $474.6 million in federal assistance to fire survivors. This includes $61.7 million from FEMA for housing, rental and other needs approved for 7,152 individuals and households, and $412.8 million in SBA disaster loans approved for homeowners, renters and businesses.
The FEMA assistance includes a direct lease housing program and the temporary modular homes at Kilohana, plus primary sites where homeowners may be eligible to place a modular home on their property while they rebuild and secondary sites where vacant lots could be leased from homeowners who do not intend to rebuild on them within the next two to three years.
Tenants may stay at the Kilohana complex until the FEMA assistance extension ends in February 2026. The houses will then be moved from the property and sold, and most of the infrastructure on the property will be dismantled, officials said.
In August 2023, FEMA assigned the U.S. Army Corps started to provide a conceptual design, site preparation and essential infrastructure. In May, the Corps began to prepare the site by grading the land, installing water and sewer lines, electricity and paving streets. Because the site was on hard rock, Blasting Technology Inc of Kihei was contracted to conduct blasting to install utilities and grade the land.
Families including the Folaumoeloas began moving in Friday with 94 homes completed.
The rent will be covered for the first few months by continued emergency assistance, but tenants must begin paying rent on March 1.
Correction: An earlier version of this story said tenants must begin paying rent in February.
FEMA’s structural engineer Forrest Lanning said the 169 houses will include 87 with one bedroom, 47 with two-bedrooms and 35 with three-bedrooms. Maximum monthly rents will range from up to $1,762 for one-bedroom units, $2,309 for two bedrooms and $3,103 for three bedrooms, Lanning said.
The houses are built to international and local building code standards, including insulation and double-pane windows. A communal space will include washers and dryers. The units are furnished and have appliances and central air conditioning.
While the weather outside was hot and dry, it was cool inside the Folaumoeloas鈥 new, green home.
On the day of the wildfire, high winds had knocked out power and cellphone service in the Folaumoelas’ home, so they went shopping in Kahului. When they tried to return home, a barricade blocked them from entering Lahaina and all they could see was smoke.
At 3 a.m., the family was at a hotel room in Kahului when their landlord, a firefighter, sent them a text message saying, “don’t go home. There is nothing left. All Lahaina down.”
They stayed a few days with a family member in Kahului, then moved to the Papakea Resort, then to the Royal Lahaina in Kaanapali where they lived until they moved to Kilohana Friday.
Nine more families who had been living in hotels were also scheduled to move in Friday, followed by some 35 others over the next few weeks, according to FEMA emergency management specialist Shahdy Monemzadeh.
鈥淥ur mission has been clear; use every resource available to bring the fire survivors back to West Maui,鈥 FEMA regional administrator Bob Fenton said in opening remarks during Friday’s ceremony.
Lanning said a new sewer line is being installed and other nearby homes can connect to it. Both sewer and water systems will be provided by Maui County. Hawaiian Electric Co. will supply the power. Streetlights will be equipped with motion sensors. Maui Disposal will manage the solid waste collection.
Maui County Council member Tamara Paltin noted the cooperation among government agencies.
鈥淚 think this right here around us is the best example of how the federal, state and county governments can work together for the benefit of our community,鈥 Paltin said.
Three different companies, Dynamic, Timberline and Acuity, built the homes on the mainland. The homes were brought to Seattle, where they were shipped by barge to Maui. They arrived mostly assembled, with some finishing work to be done on the island.
Architect Allysa Taylor is from Kahului and graduated from the University of Hawaii, but now resides in New York. She was involved as a designer and architect in one of the three housing contracts.
She said it cost $130,000 to build each of the 490-square-foot one-bedroom units she designed. This price was actually 鈥渁 little bit of a premium” because it was a rush project, she said. They only started building in August and landed the first house here in October.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a temporary housing, but we didn鈥檛 want it to feel temporary. I wanted it to feel like a real home, uplifting and permanent,鈥 she said.
Civil Beat鈥檚 coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.
