Hawai‘i’s housing vouchers are costing more and achieving less, according to a study by the University of Hawai‘i.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Housing Choice Voucher Program — also called Section 8 vouchers — allows low-income renters to have some of their rent burden subsidized. In high-cost Hawai‘i, this program can be a godsend, but a report by the UH Economic Research Organization claims that the program is “stagnant” despite a sharp increase in federal spending.
According to the paper, titled “The State of the Housing Choice Voucher Program in Hawai‘i,” while federal spending in the program has increased by 70% since 2003 — about $170 million in 2024 — the number of households receiving vouchers through the program has only increased by 20% during the same time.
In other words, the paper posits, the government “is effectively paying more to house the same number of people,” with the increased spending going towards ballooning market rents.
The program is open to people who fall below a certain income threshold: 30% of the area median income, which in 2024 was between $29,250 and $48,750 for a single person, or between $41,750 and $69,000 for a family of four in Honolulu. Those who receive a voucher typically pays 30% of their adjusted income on rent and utilities, with the local public housing authority — in Hawai‘i’s case, each county or the Hawai‘i Public Housing Authority — covering the rest of the rent.
In 2024, the City and County of Honolulu administered about 4,500 voucher households on O‘ahu. Hawai‘i County had 2,200, Maui County had 1,600 and Kaua‘i 880, while the HPHA administered another 2,700, primarily on O‘ahu.
JoonYup Park, lead author of the paper, said Wednesday that beneficiaries of the program have become, on average, 9% poorer over the last 20 years, meaning that their contribution to their rents has become smaller, making the government’s share larger.
According to the paper, the median household income statewide increased from $66,000 to $100,000 between 2010 and 2024. During the same period, the median income of voucher households only increased from about $13,000 to $17,300; with the 2010 incomes adjusted to 2024 dollar values, that is actually a decline in income.
Complicating matters is the fact that not all vouchers are used, as state money runs out before the vouchers do. Kaua‘i spent most of the last decade only leasing about half of its vouchers each year, the paper claims.
At the same time, landlords can and often do refuse to rent to Section 8 tenants, and the program is entirely dependent upon landlords’ voluntary participation.
Specific solutions to restore the program, however, mostly reiterate things the state has been saying for years: There needs to be more affordable housing available statewide, and people need to be able to make more money.
Park said that increasing the supply of housing would apply deflationary pressure to rents, which would hopefully reduce government spending per household, and thereby allowing assistance to reach more people.
At the same time, Park said the state could encourage upward social mobility, such as by promoting job training programs that could lead participants to higher incomes and allow them to leave the voucher program entirely.
For yet another problem facing the voucher program is that many people aren’t leaving and many that do have not seen their incomes increase. About 1,350 households left the program in 2023 and 2024; about 40% left with a higher income than when they started, but 30% saw their income basically unchanged, and another 30% had lower incomes than when they began with the program.
At the same time, the aging population means voucher beneficiaries are also aging. Park said older beneficiaries are less likely to work, more reliant on fixed incomes and therefore remain in the program longer, which reduces turnover and prevents new households from receiving vouchers.
Park estimated that only one in five eligible households receives a voucher, leaving the remainder to wait for years on a waitlist.
Park emphasized that, despite the challenges facing the program, “vouchers do work.” But without policies to support the program, the state could continue to spend more to help less.
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