While the Act 57 program ended in August 2022, Hawaiʻi Appleseed will be advocating for a permanent rental relief program that includes mediation to stabilize affordable housing.

Evictions have a lengthy legal process, and tenants always have an option to go to mediation. Instead, people think that there is no choice but to move out.

The moratorium, put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in September, was the only tool keeping millions of tenants in their homes.

Governor Ige is waiting to decide whether or not to extend the moratorium and is still reviewing the mediation bill before deciding whether to sign it.

There is no organization dedicated to advocating for the rights of tenants, and a new study finds they lose nearly every eviction case.

According to a new report from non-profit group Lawyers for Equal Justice, 95 percent of eviction cases in Hawaiʻi resulted in the tenant being evicted.

There’s no justifiable reason that 85-95 percent of all lawsuit-dispute cases end in eviction, but that is where a report from Lawyers for Equal Justice (LEJ), released this week, places the rate for Hawaiʻi.

The study confirms the existence of a stark disparity in legal representation between landlords and tenants, and a corresponding imbalance in eviction case outcomes in favor of landlords.

About nine of every 10 eviction lawsuits in the state result in tenants losing their homes, an outcome that partly reflects a huge disparity in who gets help from attorneys, according to a landmark study that analyzed a decade of Hawaiʻi court data.

The study found that about nine of every 10 Hawaiʻi eviction lawsuits over the past decade ended in tenants losing their homes, and most tenants did not have lawyers to help them navigate a system widely considered to be confusing for lay people.

A lawsuit filed by tenants of a Lahaina affordable housing project has become a bellwether case for the future of affordable housing in Hawaiʻi. Victor Geminiani, an attorney with Lawyers for Equal Justice, is representing some of the plaintiffs in the case.

The lawsuit challenges developer’s attempt to convert the property into market-rate rentals in violation of the 51-year commitment to keep rents affordable to low-income tenants.