Modular-home village proposed for displaced Lahaina residents

Oct. 16—Tiny-home villages have been popular as emergency housing in Hawaii, but Maude Cumming is pursuing a bigger idea to temporarily re-house many Lahaina residents displaced by the Aug. 8 wildfire that destroyed the West Maui town.

KAHULUI—Tiny-home villages have been popular as emergency housing in Hawaii, but Maude Cumming is pursuing a bigger idea to temporarily re-house many Lahaina residents displaced by the Aug. 8 wildfire that destroyed the West Maui town.

The longtime leader of a nonprofit Maui homeless services provider aims to develop 85 homes each with a kitchenette, bathroom and screened lanai in Kahului for free use by fire evacuees during the next two years and possibly longer.

Each home, as designed, would contain 256 to 416 square feet of covered living area, excluding lanai space. That's in the range of standard hotel rooms, is comparable to some new studio or one-bedroom affordable-housing units recently developed in Hawaii and is considerably larger than local tiny-home villages with units around 100 square feet.

"We wanted to make it as comfortable as possible for people to accept, " Cumming said. "It's a lot more expensive, but when you think about people who were in homes and lost everything, to me that was a small price to have to think about for people who had just gone through this horrible event."

Homes at the project, dubbed Ohana Hope Village, are being built using modular main living areas comprising one or two 20-by-8-foot collapsible steel structures imported from Hungary connected to a kitchenette and bathroom addition, along with a lanai built on Maui with traditional wood framing.

The project led by Cumming, who is CEO of the Kahului-based Family Life Center, is estimated to cost $20 million, not including donated labor and materials.

Because of the fairly grand scale of the project and its location on land with no easy utility infrastructure connections, there have been significant challenges and delays.

The Family Life Center previously aimed to open a first phase with as many as 34 homes by Sept. 4, but that was later pushed back to the end of this month and most recently to the end of November.

These setbacks are largely due to changes in infrastructure plans, mainly dealing with a potable water source, that necessitated project design changes.

Another challenge has been raising money. No government funding is being sought, and so far about $2 million in private donations has been raised, including $250, 000 from Hawaii Community Foundation.

Cumming said potential donors appear to be waiting until they see that infrastructure challenges can be met.

To date, several homes are in various stages of completion on-site, and Cumming is determined to succeed.

"I think we can do it, " she said. "I believe we can. ... This is a lot bigger than I first imagined, but I think it is worth it. I believe it is a solution that we need."

Ohana Hope Village is one of many government and private-sector efforts to temporarily house people displaced by the Lahaina fire, which killed at least 98 people and destroyed or damaged an estimated 3, 500 homes.

Close to 7, 000 evacuees need housing until they can rebuild what they lost or find a long-term replacement. About 6, 000 or so have been living in noncongregate shelters, mainly hotel rooms on Maui, according to the American Red Cross.

Family Life Center leaders initially considered providing relief housing by reusing 23 tiny homes the organization set up in a Wailuku park using federal funding during the COVID-19 pandemic to shelter homeless people with high health risks. The idea, Cumming said, was to join three or four of the 64-square-foot units to make several larger units.

But the idea of housing families or kupuna in a complex with a communal kitchen and bathrooms didn't seem appropriate, so an alternate plan was developed.

"We did not want to run a refugee camp, " Cumming explained.

Part of the upgrade, identified through research and contacts, turned out to be collapsible container housing units made by Hungarian-­based Continest. The steel units are pre-wired, insulated and include doors and windows. An initial 18 units were delivered to Maui on Aug. 20 on a C-17 military cargo plane flown by NATO.

A 10-acre site was made available under a two-year lease by King's Cathedral Maui, a church formerly known as First Assembly of God, which started Family Life Center in 1982.

The site is across from the church on a corner of Kuihe ­lani Highway and Puunene Avenue, and it can be used for fire relief housing under an emergency proclamation.

A second batch of 45 Continest units reached New Jersey via ship Oct. 4, and should arrive on Maui by the end of this month after a cross-country road trip and sea voyage from the West Coast. A total of 160 Continest containers are being bought to produce 85 homes for around 250 people, including seniors and families with children.

Dozens of mostly local companies signed on to help, including Hawaii Off Grid, whose principal architect, David Sellers, serves as Ohana Hope Village's chief planner.

"The past month has been difficult for all of us, " Sellers said in a Sept. 22 announcement. "As soon as this tragedy happened, we were deeply touched. For us, the only way to get through it was to get to work. Everyone has rallied together, sacrificing weekends, and working long nights to show support and do whatever we can to help our community rebuild."

Other companies pitching in include Truss Systems Hawaii, its affiliate ShedPro Hawaii, Maui Plumbing and Arita Paulson General Contracting.

To handle wastewater, a septic system will be installed, and several units have been donated.

Maui construction firm Goodfellow Brothers graded the project site, Japanese-­based Daikin is donating split air conditioners for each home and RevoluSun is installing rooftop solar systems with batteries for power.

Hans "Solar " Harder, an electrical contractor on Maui for RevoluSun, said right after the fire so many residents wanted to help, and contributing professional skills was a good way to do that at the Ohana Hope Village project.

"I'm excited to see what it's going to become, " Harder said Oct. 6 while installing a solar panel on-site.

The project's biggest challenge, according to Cumming, has been infrastructure, which hampered design and construction.

For instance, an early plan for potable water was to fill and refill a 25, 000-gallon tank that was built on-site. Then a more sustainable source of well water was pursued. But that didn't pan out, either, and now project leaders are working with Maui County to provide a municipal water connection.

Cumming said that in hindsight she would have pursued a site with existing utility infrastructure, but a quick decision on location was made because there was incredible urgency to get started and help as fast as possible.

"We're not developers, " she said. "I knew that getting water and sewer would be hard, but perhaps we could do it."

An initial cluster of six homes plus a community center made in part with shipping containers is the core of an initial 34-home first phase expected to be finished by the end of November. Cumming said she's hopeful that once the first cluster is complete, more homes can be added faster.

Other planned parts of the envisioned community include a garden and a playground.

More than 120 applications for Ohana Hope Village housing have already been received.

REACH OUT To help with Ohana Hope Village, visit or contact the Family Life Center at 808-877-0880.