LAHAINA -- Aaron Queen has moved 10 times and juggled four jobs since his one-bedroom unit at the Front Street Apartments burned in the 2023 Lahaina wildfire.

Now slinging pizzas and selling fishing poles, the 49-year-old only makes a third of the income he did before the fire when he was bringing in nightly tips as a bartender.

That's why he's anxious for the rebuilding of the Front Street Apartments, where rent was affordable and the neighborhood kids called him "uncle" as he fixed their bikes. But with the housing project not expected to be finished until at least 2029, residents aren't sure where they can afford to live in the meantime, especially with some facing the end of their Federal Emergency Management Agency-subsidized housing in February.

"My wheels are turning and burning," Queen told the Hawai'i Journalism Initiative. "I'm just trying to find something to make it here."

The 142 units at the Front Street Apartments were among more than 700 affordable housing units that were destroyed in the fire. These units sorely need to be rebuilt in a town where renters were a big portion of the population, but most have yet to start, complicated by the effort and funding it will take to rebuild them as well as their locations near the shoreline or in historic districts.

The latest plan for the future Front Street complex calls for 240 units, an increase over the 192 units proposed in January. Project developers say they are trying to move as quickly as possible but that they face "an impossible conundrum."

"If there were any actions that we could take to change the timeline or provide other types of housing, we would take them," said Anders Lyons, executive director of project developer Hale Mahaolu. "I absolutely feel for the people who are in a situation where the need is urgent and now. I just don't have the resources to make that happen."

FIGHTING FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING

When Gail Falkenbury got a one-bedroom unit at the Front Street Apartments affordable housing project in Lahaina more than 20 years ago, she said "it was a game changer."

"It was my first time living on my own as an adult," Falkenbury said. "It just afforded me to stay on the west side and to be independent and to have my own space."

Since opening in 2001, Front Street Apartments has allowed many residents like Falkenbury to live and work in West Maui. Seventy of the units were for households making 50% or less of the area median income, while 71 units were for those making 60% or below. Another unit was for the manager.

The $15.3 million project, which was funded by the state and boosted by annual tax credits, was supposed to stay affordable for 50 years.

But in 2017, Falkenbury feared her $1,400 monthly rent was going to double when the project's owners, Front Street Affordable Housing Partners, tried to raise rents to market rate through a loophole in the federal tax code.

Front Street tenants rallied to stop the increase, and state lawmakers passed bills that allowed the Hawai'i Housing Finance and Development Corporation to acquire the property from then-landowner 3900 LLC for $15 million in 2019, and start negotiations with the building owners to keep rents affordable.

On July 1, 2023, the state and building owner reached an agreement that extended the lease for 31 years and reduced the annual rent, according to state documents. A month later, the wildfire that killed at least 102 people destroyed the apartment complex. Fortunately, all 260-plus residents and employees of the complex survived.

Front Street Affordable Housing Partners eventually gave up its ground lease and the state took over the rebuilding project in 2024.

Dean Minakami, executive director of the Hawai'i Housing Finance and Development Corporation, said the agency wanted to speed up rebuilding of the apartments, so it bypassed its usual process of seeking proposals from developers and chose Hale Mahaolu because the nonprofit is based on Maui and owns the property next door, Lahaina Surf, which it also plans to rebuild.

Plans are still subject to change, but the most recent proposal shared at an open house on Wednesday calls for Front Street Apartments to have 108 one-bedroom units, 96 two-bedroom units and 36 studios.

"The demand for this type of housing is overwhelming, and so it just seemed like an opportunity that we shouldn't miss to provide some additional units," said Lyons, whose nonprofit has developed and/or managed 16 projects in Maui County and has "waiting lists a mile long."

The apartments would be available to residents making 30% to 100% of the area median income. At 30%, that would mean $28,290 annual income for a single person or $40,380 for a family of four. At 100%, that would mean $94,300 for a single person or $134,600 for a family of four.

Rents at the lowest level would be $707 for a studio, $757 for a one-bedroom apartment and $909 for a two-bedroom apartment. At the highest level, rents would be $2,357 for a studio, $2,525 for a one-bedroom apartment and $3,030 for a two-bedroom apartment.

Lyons said developers plan to submit the project for fast-track approval in November or December. They expect to receive building and grading permits around June 2027, start construction in September 2027 and finish in June 2029.

Former tenants would get first priority, followed by wildfire survivors and then other Maui residents, Minakami said.

Lyons didn't have a cost estimate for the project, saying "there are too many variables at this conceptual stage," including the contractors and type of materials to be used. But Minakami said generally, with projects like these, the cost is roughly $700,000 per unit. That would put the total cost for 240 units at around $168 million.

"Costs have just increased rapidly in the past few years," Minakami said. "The fire certainly had an impact, but even without the fire, costs were escalating nationwide. ... It started off during the pandemic, supply chain shortages, and it just hasn't really slowed down."

Funding is a major issue that still needs to be hammered out. The state hopes Maui County can put some of the $1.6 billion in federal disaster relief funding it received earlier this year toward Front Street Apartments. About $235 million of that money is set to provide gap funding to rebuild multifamily rental housing, according to the county's action plan.

Minakami said the project also will be funded through the state's Rental Housing Revolving Fund, state-issued bonds and tax credits.

The project already has an initial $5.5 million loan from the state's Dwelling Unit Revolving Fund to cover design and permitting, Lyons said.

Developers need to know what type of funding they'll get before they finalize the design, because this could impact which income brackets would be eligible for the units.

"It's a chicken and the egg situation, but we're working as quickly as we can," Minakami said.

Maui County spokesperson Laksmi Abraham said because the county is currently developing the multifamily rental rebuilding programs, "it would be premature to comment on which projects would be eligible or choose to participate."

"However, the County is having ongoing conversations with developers of fire-impacted properties that have been preliminarily identified as potential eligible applicants," Abraham said via email.

For a project to be eligible for the county programs, at least 51% of the constructed units must be for residents who make up to 80% of the area median income, and rents must be kept affordable for a long period of time, with the exact time period to be determined, she said.

Earlier this year, state lawmakers passed a bill that would speed up the rebuilding of Front Street Apartments and three other affordable projects by allowing Maui County's planning director to issue special management area permits for the projects instead of going through the state's lengthy shoreline approval process. Lyons said this will "streamline" things, but 2029 is still "the expedited timeline."

Abraham pointed out that the county is continuing to work with 4LEAF to expedite building permits in the burn zone, including for multifamily structures. Only three multifamily structures have been completed so far, all at Kahoma Village, a workforce housing project largely spared from the fire.

Minakami said Hawaiʻi Gov. Josh Green's team is working on possible programs to help people who are losing FEMA assistance in February, and he added that the state has already asked the federal government to extend the program beyond then.

THE NEED IS NOW

Barbara Henny, 77, was one of the leaders of the Front Street Tenants Group who fought to keep the apartments affordable. It was her home for 18 years, and she loved it was just a five-minute walk to Baby Beach.

So when the flames came to the door of her apartment on Aug. 8, 2023, she didn't want to leave. But her friends "pushed me into a car and drove me off with my cat in my arms."

"I got out, but for the last two years, sometimes I wish I hadn't," Henny said. "It's been more torturous going through what I've been going through."

Henny has moved 10 times since the fire. She still suffers from PTSD and misses her friends who've been scattered across the island or moved to the Mainland. She said the Red Cross has helped provide treatment for her physical and mental health.

Henny wants to return to the apartments but only time will tell "how well I keep up financially." She lives on a fixed income and is still waiting for her claim in the $4 billion wildfire settlement with Hawaiian Electric to be processed. Before the fire, she was paying about $1,600 for a one-bedroom unit with the help of a Section 8 voucher.

Henny said the rebuilding plans "look wonderful." But, she said, "it depends if we're still alive to be around." Going back would mean "everything in the world" to her.

"It's where I want to die," she said. "Being by the ocean, which has always been important, and surrounded by people that I knew and loved."

In 12 years of living at the Front Street Apartments, Queen also grew to love his neighbors and his home. For a one-bedroom upstairs unit, he paid just over $1,200, a "perfect" fit for his income at two part-time bartender jobs at the Lahaina Yacht Club and Lahaina Pizza Co.

Since the fire, he's struggled with medical issues, including asthma that got worse from three hours spent in the thick smoke of the fire, and a knee injury that prevented him from working for a year. He's back to working again, but even between his jobs at Sale Pepe Pizzeria e Cucina, Via! by Sale Pepe, West Valley Sports and Fishing Supply, and Swell Life in Kā'anapali Shores, he's typically only logging about 30 hours a week.

"It's hard, but it's all, really, that's available," Queen said. "But they're convenient jobs for people I love to work for."

Queen said the developers are doing what they can to keep former tenants informed, but it's "a waiting game." His dream is to return to the Front Street Apartments one day, and he hopes his neighbors can, too.

Elaine, a former resident who declined to give her last name, is also "not sure I'll be alive" by the time the project finishes in 2029. She's currently living in FEMA-leased housing in Kahana, but said, "Come February, I don't know where I'll be living."

Front Street Apartments helped her afford a place after her husband died in 2021. The couple had saved money to buy a condo, but after his death, she had to use the money to pay the rent, and she applied for affordable housing. It took her eight months to get into the apartments, where she paid about $900 for a one-bedroom unit and lived on her Social Security checks.

Falkenbury said she doesn't feel like there's a clear plan to help bring back former tenants, and that the only solution they're being offered is to apply for Section 8 vouchers.

"I'm 55, and I feel like for me, I can figure things out," she said. "But I look at my neighbors who are 70 and 80, and there's no going home for them."

Over the last two years, she's watched the federal government and the state pour time and money into temporary housing projects.

"How much money was spent on these container homes that could have been put into a project such as Front Street Apartments to get our elderly people back to where they need to be?" she said.

Falkenbury thinks the plans to rebuild the apartments are "super unrealistic" and risky given that the new project will increase density in an area that was already heavily populated to begin with. On the day of the fire, Falkenbury got stuck in traffic for close to an hour before she decided to ditch her truck and take off on foot.

Abraham said the county will review the Front Street Apartments and other housing in the area as part of ongoing evacuation planning.

Chyna Colorado, a friend of Falkenbury's who lives in Kahoma Village, said she lived in low-income housing for 14 years, "and it really helped me at a time where I wouldn't have been able to live anywhere else." She's concerned that many of the affordable housing and multifamily projects that burned down haven't started rebuilding yet.

"I know the answer from the county will always be ... we have to move slow to move fast," she said. "You know, that's not good enough. You have people that are really like at a certain point in life, they need a home now."