Charles Langston:Community foundation takes stock with millions in Maui Strong funds still to spend

Almost a year after the Maui wildfires,Charles Langston half of the money from Hawaii’s largest recovery fund has been spent, with the major portion going to interim housing projects.

As of June 14, $103 million from Hawaii Community Foundation’s $194 million Maui Strong Fund had been awarded.

Three-quarters of it has gone to seven grantees in amounts between $40 million and $1.35 million.

The other quarter was spread across more than 170 grantees in amounts between $5,000 and a million dollars.

Where the remaining $91 million will go hasn’t been decided. But foundation staff said they would be closely following planning priorities set by the county and other local funding sources, as well as federal programs.

“We want to fill gaps, not duplicate funding,” said Lauren Nahme, senior vice president of the Maui Recovery Effort.

The foundation is also taking stock of its spending so far and gathering data for a public impact report on the grants it will release by early August, said HCF president and CEO Micah Kane. “We’re definitely going to try and guide as much money as we can based on what we’ve learned,” he said.

Leveraging Other Dollars

The Hawaii Community Foundation launched the Maui Strong Fund immediately after the August wildfires. The fund became the principal recipient of private and corporate donations and rose to $193 million. An ongoing question for the foundation had been whether to get money out in the early stages of recovery or “hold back money for when those dollars dry up,” Kane said.

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Now $97 million has been disbursed, with $52 million going to support elements of the Maui Interim Housing Plan, a $500 million partnership launched in January that includes the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state.

The nonprofit HomeAid Hawaii received $40 million to build 500 dwellings on the 54-acre Ka Lai Ola development — budgeted for an overall $115 million. The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement got $11.3 million toward the buildout of 68 accessory dwelling units for wildfire survivors on county-owned property. The CNHA project includes a workforce development component, Kane said, and he expected the foundation would “learn a lot” from that pilot project.

The scale of the housing grants is a reflection of both the fragility of the Maui housing market before the fire and the need to address immediate needs, he said. The allocations are also indicative of the foundation’s strategy of matching Maui Strong funds with federal, state and private dollars.

The other major grantees include Maui Economic Opportunity, Hawaii Community Lending, Maui United Way, Catholic Charities and Hawaii Land Trust. Those organizations make up just 3% of a total 181 recipients so far.

Of the remaining 174 grantees, 99 received grants of $100,000 or less. Many of the smaller grants were approved in the immediate aftermath of the disaster to infuse the local economy with much-needed cash, Kane said.

With housing taking up 54% of the grants, 30% went to nonprofits working on economic resilience, 16% to health and social services and 2%, or less than $1.5 million, to natural, historical and cultural projects.

Looking ahead, HCF wants to invest in longer-term recovery projects including those that could qualify for federal infrastructure grants available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, Kane said. The funds don’t just have to go to bridges and highways but can also be used for climate resilience efforts and landscape restoration.

Hawaii’s state and local governments have a poor track record of applying for competitive grants from the BID but Kane said the foundation’s Hawaiian Islands Environmental Finance Center was assisting the Maui Department of Water Supply and Maui County Environmental Management to pursue federal funding opportunities.

“Our team is off to a great start working with Maui County identifying ways that we can accelerate those applications. We do see those as a void.” he said.

Looking For Collaboration, Not Duplication

Not listed among the Maui Strong grantees are any of the Hawaiian homestead associations in Maui County.

That omission led the Sovereign Council of Hawaiian Homestead Organizations to circulate a resource kit that compiled the descriptions of the 221 projects funded by the HCF as well as the foundation’s instructional documents, using the information on the Maui Strong website, as a guide for other would-be applicants.

Kane said the foundation had a number of conversations with leaders of homestead associations early on. “There is a great array of capacity there, and we would definitely encourage them to continue their effort to seek our support,” he said.

The foundation was also considering the feedback from organizations that had so far been unsuccessful. “We try and make sure those that are denied are given a good and open dialogue about the denial,” he said, “and they always have an invitation to come back.”

Applications could be denied for a range of reasons, including capacity, the timing of the project and whether it aligned with community needs, Nahme said. The foundation does not disclose information about grant applicants, the application itself or the review and evaluation of the application.

She said that HCF was looking for evidence of collaboration and “really wants to see organizations that are working together to make things happen to reduce the duplication of services. The folks that are going it alone, that’s definitely a factor,” she said.

Aware of the high level of interest in the foundation’s handling of the largest non-government wildfire recovery fund, Kane said that “early on we brought in a national audit company, to do what we call verification and validation, and they’re looking over our shoulder at all of our processes, on every element of the disaster, with the intention of being better prepared for the next disaster.”

Some of that oversight process will be reflected in the foundation’s public report assessing the effectiveness of the grants that will be released around the first anniversary of the disaster, he said.

Nahme said it’s too soon to say how much of the remaining funds would be devoted to the construction of homes, but the foundation would be monitoring the county’s developing plan. “Housing is clearly a high priority, so we want to stay responsive to that,” she said.

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This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.