Members of the Maui Tenants Association, along with local unions and other supporters, rally on Monday afternoon in front of the Queen Ka‘ahumanu Center to urge Gov. Josh Green to extend the eviction moratorium and rent freeze on Maui. The Maui News / MELISSA TANJI photo

KAHULUI — Gov. Josh Green plans to extend renter protections that are set to expire next month, his office said Wednesday following a rally by tenants earlier this week calling for a continued eviction moratorium and rent freeze.

“Governor Green asked the Attorney General to put into place protections for renters, and he intends to extend those protections in the emergency proclamation, as needed, to assist Maui residents with housing and other needs in their ongoing recovery efforts,” the Governor’s Office said in a statement to The Maui News on Wednesday.

Renters say the protections are sorely needed, especially in the wake of the Aug. 8 fires that displaced thousands of families.

West Maui resident and worker Stephanie Smythe, whose family lost their homes in the Aug. 8 fire, said they do not know where they will spend the holidays.

“We don’t know where we are going to have Christmas. We need you to step up and help us,” said Smythe, who spoke at a rally Monday afternoon to urge officials to extend the eviction moratorium and rent freeze on Maui as well as outlaw short-term rentals to help fire victims and other local families find housing.

Smythe, who works at the Royal Lahaina Resort, noted the vacation properties from Honokowai to Napili that cater to visitors.

“Those properties alone can easily house everybody that has been displaced by the fire,” she said. “Pull those permits. Do away with short-term rentals, now. Open up those houses for us so we can begin to heal.”

International Longshore and Warehouse Union representative John Simpliciano, whose union officials also attended the rally, said that friends and family in West Maui are having a hard time finding long-term rental housing.

“Two bedrooms is $4,000 and this can’t go on. How are we helping the people?” Simpliciano asked.

Nonprofit groups, renters and unions came together Monday to call on Green to extend the eviction moratorium and rent freeze that are set to end on Nov. 6 under his seventh emergency proclamation, unless another proclamation takes its place.

Officials have said recently there are still some 7,000 people staying in 36 hotels and properties serving as temporary shelters for fire victims.

“It’s just too soon, our people have not gotten their feet under them, they have not gotten a chance to process the trauma that they have endured. They do not have a safe place to be and to grieve and to heal,” Nara Boone, a spokesperson for the Maui Tenants Association, said at the rally Monday afternoon fronting the Queen Ka’ahumanu Center. “And that will continue to be the case until all of our people on Maui are given the housing that they need. This cannot continue in this way.”

Boone said Maui had been “in the housing crisis before the fires” and that more than a year ago, rents had already increased by 41 percent, as reported by the University of Hawai’i Economic Research Organization in 2022.

In June, UHERO released “The Hawai’i Housing Factbook” which showed Maui County had the highest median asking rent and the highest median condominium price and is the most “severely rent burdened” in the state with renters paying more than 50 percent of their income toward rent.

According to the report, median rent was $1,810 in Lahaina, and median asking rent on Craigslist even before the fires was $3,000, one of the highest, if not the highest, on the island.

A newly launched website, Maui Hale Match, which is trying to match residents with housing they can afford, has detailed that median market rents advertised for homes on Maui are around $700 to $1,500 higher per month than what families say they can actually afford.

Shannon I’i, who also spoke at the rally, said she was also displaced by the fires, as her home that she and other generations grew up in was burned. She called on government officials to go beyond just saying they would extend the eviction moratorium and rent freeze.

“We need action, we need to see that you are going to stop evictions. We need to see that, not just see the extensions, we need you to put that in place. We need you to make sure that that is happening. We need to make sure that you are not evicting people out,” I’i said.

When asked about residents’ concerns over evictions and short-term rentals, a county spokesperson said: “Given the gravity of the situation, it’s understandable that our community would want all options to be considered.”

State Attorney General Anne Lopez announced Monday that she is asking residential rental tenants on Maui to notify her department if their landlords are illegally raising rent or threatening them with eviction for failure to pay rent, taxes or fees.

“We are aware of reports of Maui landlords raising rent beyond what was being assessed for the same unit as of August 9, 2023,” Lopez said in a news release. “The purpose of the rent and eviction restrictions in the Emergency Proclamation is to address the unprecedented humanitarian crisis caused by the August wildfires.”

To report a Maui landlord for potentially violating the terms of the emergency proclamation, email hawaiiag@hawaii.gov.

* Staff Writer Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.