Member LoginMember Login - User registration - Setup as front page - Add to favorites - Sitemap Hawaii lawmakers take aim at vacation rentals after Lahaina wildfire amplifies Maui housing crisis !

Hawaii lawmakers take aim at vacation rentals after Lahaina wildfire amplifies Maui housing crisis

Time:2024-05-21 10:11:05 source:Stellar Spotlight news portal

HONOLULU (AP) — A single mother of two, Amy Chadwick spent years scrimping and saving to buy a house in the town of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui. But after a devastating fire leveled Lahaina in August and reduced Chadwick’s home to white dust, the cheapest rental she could find for her family and dogs cost $10,000 a month.

Chadwick, a fine-dining server, moved to Florida where she could stretch her homeowners insurance dollars. She’s worried Maui’s exorbitant rental prices, driven in part by vacation rentals that hog a limited housing supply, will hollow out her tight-knit town.

Most people in Lahaina work for hotels, restaurants and tour companies and can’t afford $5,000 to $10,000 a month in rent, she said.

“You’re pushing out an entire community of service industry people. So no one’s going to be able to support the tourism that you’re putting ahead of your community,” Chadwick said by phone from her new home in Satellite Beach on Florida’s Space Coast. “Nothing good is going to come of it unless they take a serious stance, putting their foot down and really regulating these short-term rentals.”

Related information
  • Amtrak train hits pickup truck in upstate New York, 3 dead including child
  • Jury visits a ranch near US
  • Louisiana lawmakers reject minimum wage raise and protections for LGBTQ+ people in the workplace
  • German parliament approves payment cards for asylum
  • Inquiry slams UK authorities for failures that killed thousands in infected blood scandal
  • OJ Simpson dies at 76 of prostate cancer
  • Sexual assaults rise in Central African Republic. Wagner, bandits and even peacekeepers are blamed
  • Firearms Prohibition Orders changes just 'window dressing'
Recommended content
  • Kristin Cavallari, 37, ignores critics of her age
  • US, Japan and South Korea hold drills in disputed sea as Biden hosts leaders of Japan, Philippines
  • How O.J. Simpson burned the Ford Bronco into America's collective memory
  • Faced with possibly paying for news, Google removes links to California news sites for some users
  • Saudi Arabia is going to sponsor the WTA women's tennis rankings under a new partnership
  • Arizona abortion law: Trump pushes state lawmakers to remedy ruling