While their lawsuit against the state will continue, two Kaua‘i residents will not be evicted from their Department of Hawaiian Home Lands-owned apartment complex.
David Kalahiki and Linda Twitchell sued the Hawaiian Homes Commission last month after they were served eviction notices ordering them to vacate their apartments at the Kapa‘a Courtyards at Waipouli apartment complex earlier this year.
The evictions were based around the DHHL’s 2024 purchase of the complex for more than $44 million. DHHL intended to offer the complex’s 82 housing units to Hawaiians on the department’s housing waitlist, which required people who did not possess at least a 50% Native Hawaiian blood quantum to vacate.
The public interest law firm Pacific Legal Foundation filed a suit against Hawaiian Homes Commission chair Kali Watson in U.S. District Court.
On Friday — the day Twitchell was required to leave her apartment — the plaintiffs’ and the state’s attorneys agreed to withdraw the eviction notices.
According to the agreement, Hawaiian Homes Commission chair Kali Watson will not order Kalahiki or Twitchell to vacate their apartments until either the end of the case or June 1, 2027, whichever is earlier. But if the case remains pending by mid-April 2027, the parties will reconsider the June 1 deadline, the agreement states.
Consequently, the plaintiffs have withdrawn a motion for a court-ordered injunction that would prevent their evictions.
But the case itself, which challenges the constitutionality of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act and DHHL’s policy of evicting tenants for not meeting a blood quantum requirement, remains active.
Like an earlier case challenging the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act — Ryan v. Watson, another Pacific Legal Foundation Case — the state has vowed to defend the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act and DHHL.
The Department of the Attorney General told Aloha State Daily last week that the department “is aware of the complaint and is prepared to vigorously defend the lawsuit.”
With the eviction matter withdrawn, the next scheduled event for the case will be a scheduling conference in October.
Meanwhile, the Kalahiki case also figures into the Ryan v. Watson case. Attorneys for plaintiff Eric Ryan filed a notice last week acknowledging the Kaua‘i case and recognizing the similarities between the two cases.
The Ryan case arose in June when Ryan, an O‘ahu resident, attempted to apply for a DHHL lease and was told he “does not meet the minimum requirements” after he answered “no” to the question of whether he is at least 50% Native Hawaiian.
Unlike the Kalahiki case, the Ryan case directly seeks the effective abolishment of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act by requesting that the court issue a permanent injunction against the Commission’s enforcement of any blood quantum test for DHHL leases.
Like the Kalahiki case, however, the next event in the Ryan case will be an October scheduling conference.
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