Hawaii Housing Planning Study (HHPS) Landing Page

Welcome to the Hawaii Housing Planning Study (HHPS) Landing Page!

 

The Hawaii Housing Planning Study (HHPS) is a comprehensive set of housing data prepared for a consortium of state and county housing agencies. The study identifies current housing conditions, presents demographic and economic characteristics of Hawaiʻi’s households, and measures housing need, demand and preferences. It also provides an update on the housing inventory and rental housing data.

The 2024 Hawaiʻi Housing Planning Study (HHPS) has been released and is now available to the public.

The study estimates that Hawaiʻi will need 64,490 additional housing units to meet demand by 2027.

Governor Josh Green, M.D., has made clear that housing is a top priority for his administration. The results of the 2024 Hawaiʻi Housing Planning Study reaffirm his belief that the state continues to face a critical affordable housing crisis.

The results of the study also suggest that, with the help of the state Legislature, the efforts of HHFDC and other state as well as county housing agencies have helped to reduce the demand. In fact, the number of additional units needed would be much greater if not for those efforts.

Much headway has been made in constructing new housing units since 2019, and a substantial pipeline of affordable housing units will be developed in the coming years thanks to the support of Governor Green and the Legislature.

Those reading this report should note that although the unmet demand in the 2024 housing study is higher than what was reported in 2019, the increase is largely the result of:

  • A projected increase in the state’s population through 2027.
  • An updated methodology that is more accurate than the formula that was used in the previous study.

Had the previous methodology been used for the 2024 study, the estimated housing units needed would have remained similar between the 2019 and 2024 studies.

Among other key findings made in the 2024 study:

  • The number and percentage of units that are needed varies vastly among the counties. Specifically, the City and County of Honolulu will need 25,710 units; Maui County will need 14,987 units (pre-Maui wildfire numbers); Hawaiʻi County will need 18,879 units; and Kauaʻi County will need 4,914 units.
  • An analysis of units needed based on income levels found that 65% of the units (42,100) are needed for households earning 80% of the area median income (AMI) or below.
  • There continues to be a severe “affordability gap,” meaning a large number of households need to spend more than the standard 30% of its income toward housing. For instance, the average Hawaiʻi household seeking to spend no more than 30% of its income on rent for the average two-bedroom unit needs to earn $41.83 an hour combined. The average family of that size only earns $24.37 an hour, leaving an affordability gap of $17.46 an hour.