SB1859

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that the price of owning and renting a home has risen above the ability of working families who earn below fifty per cent of the median income. Accordingly, increasing numbers of working families are unable to find a place to live. There are now six thousand homeless people in Hawaii at any one time. Moreover, family shelters are full, and homeless families must wait three months or longer to get into emergency or transitional shelters.

The legislature further finds that Habitat for Humanity builds safe, decent, and affordable homes at zero interest, with mortgages of $45,000 to $65,000, and monthly payments ranging from $300 to $650 for families with incomes from thirty to fifty per cent of the median income. Families also contribute sweat equity by volunteering five hundred hours toward building their own homes and homes for others. This process strengthens communities by bringing together people from all walks of life to participate in building affordable homes that provide a stable environment for raising children for families who might otherwise become homeless.

Hawaii Habitat for Humanity has established a statewide Fund for Humanity, a revolving loan fund that makes zero interest loans to the seven home-building Habitat for Humanity affiliates across the islands. Habitat affiliates are found in Honolulu and Leeward Oahu, Hilo and Kona on the Big Island, Maui, Kauai, and Molokai. A grant from the State would provide two hundred loans at $20,000 per home. These zero interest loans would each leverage approximately $40,000 in additional funds per home. Leveraged funds come from other major donors, churches, and a variety of fundraising activities. A grant would also assist in leveraging land at no cost from the State, the counties, and the department of Hawaiian home lands. On twenty-year mortgages, the $20,000 loans will be repaid at the rate of $1,000 per year per home. Within ten years, the repayments will be able to fund another one hundred homes for $2,000,000 and in twenty years, the loan repayment will have funded another two hundred homes for low-income families.

Each home also leverages five hundred hours of sweat equity from new homeowners and a total of approximately seven thousand hours of community building labor. The legislature finds that the total cost of $1,400,000 to prevent homelessness of at-risk working families is far less than the cost of providing shelter for those families or of building affordable rental units.

SECTION 2. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $700,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2007-2008, and the same sum, or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2008-2009, as a grant pursuant to chapter 42F, Hawaii Revised Statutes, to the Hawaii Habitat for Humanity to fund the building of two hundred homes, capacity building for Habitat affiliates, and administrative costs pursuant to this Act.

The sums appropriated shall be expended by the Hawaii housing finance and development corporation for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 5. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2007

INTRODUCED BY:	_____________________________

THE SENATE	S.B. NO.	1859
TWENTY-FOURTH LEGISLATURE, 2007
STATE OF HAWAII