Two Kaua‘i renters are suing the chair of the Hawaiian Homes Commission over a rule they claim will evict them based on their ancestry.
The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands purchased the Courtyards at Waipouli apartment complex in Kapa‘a for $44 million in 2024 with the intent to offer the building’s 82 units of housing to Hawaiians on DHHL’s notoriously long waitlist.
However, to do this, the existing tenants of the complex would need to leave. And, in March and in May respectively, residents Linda Twitchell and David Kalahiki were served notices to evict within 90 days.
“They had leases signed, they wanted to stay,” attorney Caleb Trotter, who represents Kalahiki and Twitchell, told Aloha State Daily. “They certainly didn’t know that this was in the works when they moved in … Linda has been there for roughly seven or eight years. David’s been there a little bit shorter, but for some time before DHHL bought the property.”
DHHL announced in November 2025 that the Courtyards would become the department’s “first apartment acquisition aimed at beneficiaries interested in a rent-with-option-to-purchase program.” But, like DHHL’s other housing initiatives, eligibility for the program is contingent on a person’s ancestry: people must possess at least a 50% Native Hawaiian blood quantum to qualify.
Trotter, an attorney with the public interest law firm Pacific Legal Foundation, told ASD that Kalahiki and Twitchell are not the only tenants at Courtyards who have been served eviction notices. He said those notices have been delivered in batches, to prevent a flood of evictees from overwhelming the Kaua‘i rental market.
But, Trotter added, the housing market is sparse for Kalahiki and Twitchell, with most alternative housing options drastically more expensive. Kalahiki and his wife are both in their 80s, Trotter said, while Twitchell is in her 70s.
The suit, filed against HHC Chair Kali Watson last week, argues that DHHL’s choice to evict Kalahiki and Twitchell for lacking a sufficient blood quantum is an ancestry-based requirement that causes the state to engage in race-based discrimination, and consequently violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Trotter suggested that DHHL’s actions overstep the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, which set aside land in Hawai‘i as a land trust for Native Hawaiians in 1921. DHHL purchasing a formerly private property and evicting tenants who don’t meet the eligibility requirement, Trotter said, is “totally beyond the original purpose” of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act.
However, this isn’t the Pacific Legal Foundation’s first entanglement with the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act this year. The foundation in June filed a separate suit against Watson on behalf of an O‘ahu man who was found ineligible for the DHHL’s waitlist because of an insufficient blood quantum; the suit challenges whether the Homes Commission Act is constitutional.
That lawsuit prompted a response by Gov. Josh Green and Attorney General Anne Lopez, who both vowed to “vigorously defend” the Hawaiian Homes program.
Unlike that lawsuit, the Kalahiki case does not seek to have the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act declared unconstitutional. Rather, it seeks a declaration that evicting Kalahiki and Twitchell from their homes “due to their lacking a 50% native Hawaiian blood quantum” is unconstitutional, and an injunction against the state from doing so.
But Trotter said he hopes the DHHL will hold off on the eviction process while the case is pending. Twitchell’s eviction notice ordered her to be out of the building by the end of this week, something Trotter said “she has no plans” to do.
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