Two temporary housing projects on Maui will help house those displaced by the wildfires. One will be completed in July, while the other just broke ground.
The first family received their keys to their new temporary house on Maui on Tuesday.
It's part of the modular development at Maui Lani in Kahului, a multi-agency collaboration with 50 units set to be completed this summer.
The 600-square-foot, two-bedroom units offer fire survivors a place to call home for now.
The project costs just under $9 million and is being developed and managed by the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement on land owned by Maui County.
“It was just three months ago that we were here making an announcement... that we were going to join forces do whatever we could to help in the recovery efforts collectively," said Kūhiō Lewis, CEO of CNHA.
"So we're back here three months later with the first unit of many units to come. It's a two bedroom, one bath. There's going to be 50 of them. We're going to be building initially two per week and then it'll speed up to four per week. So we expect this project to wrap up by July.”
Earlier in the day, officials broke ground on Ka Laʻi Ola, a housing project in Lahaina designed to support wildfire survivors who are not eligible for FEMA aid.
That project will create 450 temporary housing units across 54 acres.
The studio, one- and two-bedroom temporary homes can be occupied for up to five years. It represents the largest interim housing development for Maui wildfire survivors to date.
