Washington, DC – Today, U.S. Representatives Jill Tokuda (HI-02) and Ed Case (HI-01) issued the following statements on a Department of Defense report on the military’s impact on housing in Hawai‘i. This report, required as part of the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, assessed the military’s housing requirements and impacts on the housing market, including the number of service members and their families residing off base and pathways towards increasing the Department of Defense’s housing inventory in Hawai‘i.
This uninspired report from the Department of Defense confirms what we all knew: that the military has a major impact on our housing supply and the availability of housing that our kama‘āina and families can afford. If the military is going to be a real partner to Hawai‘i and a good neighbor in our communities, then it’s high time to step up, get creative, and deliver real solutions and investments towards the biggest challenge affecting our people," stated Rep. Tokuda (HI-02). “When I requested this report, I expected that the Department would do so with fidelity and come to the table with tangible ideas for these shared challenges. This report failed to do that. We must hold the Department accountable to the shared responsibility they have to address our housing crisis and deliver real solutions for our people. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I’ll be fighting to do just that.”
“This report provides necessary detail to what we already know: that one factor in driving unacceptably high home rental prices throughout our state and especially on O’ahu is military servicemember participation, which the report estimates at 14% of occupied private O’ahu rental units,” said Rep. Ed Case (HI-01). “This clearly heightens the importance of the Hawai’i congressional delegation’s efforts over many years to assure more servicemember housing on-base and less servicemembers in the local housing rental market.
“But this will not solve the problem, for I also fully agree with the report’s conclusion that: ‘One challenge facing both active-duty Service members and non-DoD personnel seeking rental housing on O’ahu is that many private landlords prefer to offer their homes as short-term vacation rentals, thereby decreasing the supply of rental units available to the community.’ I believe that the continued allowance of widespread short term vacation rentals and continued inability to fully target illegal vacation rentals, significantly reducing the available supply of private rental units for local residents, is far more of a factor in high housing prices than current servicemember participation in our rental market.”
The Department of Defense’s report on military impacts on Hawai‘i housing can be found here.
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