Piilani Kaopuiki remained a steadfast advocate for Native Hawaiians throughout her life.  She was also a generous member of the League’s 2022 Legislative Committee, including testifying in support of HB 2511 (now Act 279) which earmarked $600 million to help clear the backlog of Native Hawaiians waiting to move into livable homes. Spurred on by a budget surplus of more than $2 billion, the state House and Senate voted unanimously to give the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) authority to use the money to provide housing for some of the applicants on its waiting list, by, among other things, buying land, providing a mortgage or rental subsidies and “other services as necessary.”

In 1921 the U.S. Congress created the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act to compensate for the government’s history of taking Hawaiian land.  After statehood in 1959, Hawaii inherited the homestead program.  The Department has not received sufficient funding for their mission while the waiting list has grown to more than 28,000 applicants.  In addition to this $600 million bill, the legislature passed a related measure approving $328 million to settle a 23-year-old lawsuit compensating about 2,700 DHHL plaintiffs who didn’t receive homesteads in a timely way, including about 950 descendants of plaintiffs who died before the case was settled.  While DHHL has estimated it would cost at least $6 billion to develop lots on its land for all beneficiaries, based on a conservative per-lot estimate of over $150,000, together these nearly $1 billion legislative decisions make a significant dent in the unfulfilled promise of housing for our Native Hawaiian citizens. 

Piilani’s hope (and prediction) was expressed in her League testimony on this bill: “this legislation will prove historic when the backlog is reduced significantly as homes become occupied within a reasonable time.”  Act 279 gives DHHL until December to prepare a spending plan for the allocation and a deadline of 2025 to complete spending. 

by Janet Mason