The cost to live in Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui keeps rising thanks to a chronic housing shortage and an influx of second-home buyers and wealthy transplants snatching up properties
Richy Palalay so closely identifies with his Maui hometown that he had a tattoo artist permanently ink “Lahaina Grown” on his forearms when he was 16.
But a chronic housing shortage and an influx of second-home buyers and wealthy transplants have been displacing residents like Palalay who give Lahaina its spirit and identity.
A fast-moving wildfire that incinerated much of the compact coastal settlement last week has multiplied concerns that any homes rebuilt there will be targeted at affluent outsiders seeking a tropical haven. That would turbo-charge what is already one of Hawaii’s gravest and biggest challenges: the exodus and displacement of Native Hawaiian and local-born residents who can no longer afford to live in their homeland.
“I’m more concerned of big land developers coming in and seeing this charred land as an opportunity to rebuild,” Palalay said Saturday at a shelter for evacuees.
Hotels and condos “that we can’t afford, that we can’t afford to live in — that’s what we’re afraid of,” he said.
Palalay, 25, was born and raised in Lahaina. He started working at an oceanfront seafood restaurant in town when he was 16 and worked his way up to be kitchen supervisor. He was training to be a sous chef.
Then came Tuesday’s wildfire which lay waste to its wooden homes and historic streets in just a few hours, killing at least 89 people to become the deadliest wildfire in the U.
