Fire-affected households continue to face a housing crisis: Fire-impacted households typically pay more than 20% higher rent than they did before the wildfires for the same number of bedrooms or fewer. Excluding fully subsidized units, renters typically face more than 50% higher rental costs for smaller or comparably sized housing.

Since the end of last year, a downward trend in out-of-pocket median rents seems to be emerging across all unit sizes.

For people who don’t receive full rental assistance, about half are now paying higher rents than before the wildfires, even though they are on lower or similar incomes. The looming end of rental assistance in the future risks further exacerbating the housing affordability crisis on Maui.

Housing stability has declined sharply in the aftermath of the fires. The proportion of fire-affected households living with family/friends or unhoused remains about 25% higher than before the wildfires. Among those affected, 5% of former homeowners and 6% of former renters still do not have stable housing (living with family/friends or unhoused).

People have had to move between temporary housing less often since August 2024, with about three quarters of respondents having now lived at their current address for 6 months or longer. But further displacement remains a threat. Nearly half of respondents remain in temporary housing. Of those, more than a third are staying with friends and family, are unhoused, or are living in temporary units without assistance.

Almost 90% of residents from the Lahaina burn area had to leave their homes and about 40% also remain displaced from West Maui.

Displacement has not only affected residents of West Maui and Kula but also those from other parts of the island. About 30% of those who worked or owned businesses in West Maui or Kula, but lived elsewhere, have been displaced from their homes since the disaster and remain displaced.

At least 1 in 7 of the surveyed households live in crowded conditions.

Most people intend to stay or return to West Maui. More than 1 in 4 households living outside of West Maui plan to move back within the next year. But these expectations do not align with the multi-year timeline to rebuild permanent housing or the availability of temporary housing units in the area.