Around 30 members of the group Lahaina Strong, Lahaina residents and supporters remained on the beach on Monday, three days after holding a news conference. By fishing with a pole in the water, the groups are allowed to stay on the beach.

“I’m not leaving,” community activist Leonard “Junya” Nakoa said Monday afternoon via cellphone from the beach.

Nakoa, one of the organizers of the event, said some people went to work Monday but will return afterward to the beach fronting Whalers Village and in view of the Kaanapali hotels. Over the weekend, Nakoa said around 200 people participated in the Lahaina Strong Hui’s “Fish-in for Dignified Housing.” The hui includes an initial 28 organizations rooted in West Maui.

Thousands of displaced residents remain in hotels, unable to find long-term housing, and those who do find a place to rent are facing high costs.

Lahaina’s Justin Kaupe-DeLeon has a nibble on his line Friday afternoon while fishing in Kaanapali. By fishing from the shore, community members are allowed to remain on the beach as part of a “Fishing for Housing” demonstration.

Organizers held a news conference Friday asking Mayor Richard Bissen and Gov. Josh Green to use their authority to provide long-term housing by converting West Maui short-term rental properties on the Minatoya list into long-term rentals; extending protections for renters against rental increases and evictions for at least a year; and allowing an immediate mortgage deferral for all homes lost in the fire and back-end mortgage abatement of all properties that are not engaged in short-term rentals, according to a news release.

The Minatoya list comes from an opinion from the late Deputy Corporation Counsel Richard Minatoya that gave legal status to thousands of condo vacation rentals, according to documents from the Realtors Association of Maui.

In an email, the Office of the Governor said on Monday, “Governor Green is daily working with partners including Maui County on securing long-term housing for Maui residents displaced by the August 8 wildfires. Hawai’i’s statewide housing crisis was exacerbated by the fires, making housing efforts that much more challenging.”

A spokesperson for Maui County on Monday did not provide a comment regarding the fish-in.

Courtney Lazo, a Lahaina resident who lost her family home in the fire, said at Friday’s news conference, “The reason why we are here on Kaanapali Beach is not just to push for long-term housing but dignified housing. Our families here, they are in the hotels, they are getting shuffled around.”

Displaced Lahaina resident Courtney Lazo speaks from the heart while calling for long-term housing solutions during Friday’s news conference on Kaanapali Beach.

Lazo is in a hotel as a temporary shelter.

“Forty-eight-hour eviction notices, if even that, having to move their families, their kids,” Lazo said of some residents who are staying in hotels. “There is no stability, there is no healing. We cannot even process and grieve what is going on when you are constantly worrying, where am I going to be tomorrow, where am I going to be next week?”

Lazo said she is “extremely grateful” for the hotels, the Red Cross and FEMA for the temporary shelters.

But, she added, “there has to be a way that we can honor tourists and honor our local community. … We cannot put the tourist industry above the community, if that means that the community gets kicked out and displaced over and over again. Our hope here is to just raise awareness of what is going on in Lahaina and give the families hope. Give them the next step, which is going to be stable housing so we can start the healing and grieving process and move on with our lives and find a new normal until we can all return back home to Lahaina.”

Her niece, 13-year-old Amaya Cathcart, said it was hard on the family having to live in a transient state, being moved from hotel room to hotel room and always worrying they may end up living out of their car, which her grandparents wouldn’t be able to do.

Lahaina Strong organizer Paele Kiakona says, “We stand united not as protesters, but as protectors,” during Friday’s news conference at Kaanapali Beach.

“My kupuna are from Lahaina,” the Lahaina Intermediate School eighth grader said. “I don’t want to go anywhere else. If they do help us with this long-term housing it would give us time to rebuild.”

Jordan Ruidas, one of the main organizers who began Lahaina Strong in 2018 after the wildfires earlier that year, said at the news conference that as the holidays are approaching, families want to cook and have visitors over for some “sense of normalcy.”

But that is “often constrained in these hotel environments,” she said.

Ruidas said that properties on the Minatoya list should be converted from short-term rentals to long-term rentals.

“Historically these very units housed our local workforce for decades,” she said.

Nakoa said that as of Monday there have been no problems with the groups remaining on the beach. He said he spoke to government and business officials in the area beforehand, and many were supportive as they have workers who were also affected by the fires.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources said on Monday afternoon that there were no issues reported with the fish-in.

* Staff Writer Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com. Staff Writer Matthew Thayer contributed to this report.