PAL Hawai'i Rallies Community Support for Affordable Housing at Kaua'i Charity Walk

Most affordable housing programs lock in prices for 10 to 20 years before returning units to the open market, erasing the public and private investment that made them possible. Permanently Affordable Living Hawai'i is trying to break that cycle, and it spent last Friday calling on Big Island residents to help.

PAL Hawai'i published a call to action on March 27, urging community members across the state to join the organization at the 2026 Kaua'i Charity Walk, where every dollar raised through the event draws additional matching contributions from the Hawai'i Lodging & Tourism Association. Registration is open; participants check in at 6 a.m. on walk day, with a group Zumba warm-up before the walk begins at approximately 7 a.m. and brunch and entertainment to follow. Those unable to attend can contribute online through PAL's website, with a minimum $50 donation including a T-shirt.

The pitch PAL Hawai'i makes to donors differs structurally from most affordable-housing appeals. The organization places every project into its Hoʻomaluhia Community Land Trust, under which families purchase the home itself while entering a 99-year renewable lease for the land the trust retains. Because land cost is stripped from the purchase equation, homes remain within reach for households earning anywhere from 30% to 120% of the area median income, a band that covers schoolteachers, healthcare workers, and first responders increasingly priced off the island. The organization describes its goal plainly: "keep longtime residents from leaving."

The difference compounds across time. PAL describes the Hoʻomaluhia model as keeping homes "permanently affordable for eight generations and beyond," a commitment the nonprofit grounds in traditional Hawaiian understanding of land as a community asset rather than a commodity for personal financial gain. When competing programs expire, that investment is gone. When a home sits inside the Hoʻomaluhia trust, affordability survives the resale.

On the Big Island, that commitment is already tied to a specific address. PAL acquired a 5.5-acre parcel at 28-2981 Kumula St. in Pepe'ekeo, about eight miles north of Hilo on the windward coast, for $2.45 million, roughly $35,000 per home site. The land already carries zoning for 69 parcels with water, power, and sewer connections in place, adjacent to Kula'imano County Park, near a bus line and Hilo's job centers. The working plan calls for 70 units: 10 tiny homes for people transitioning out of homelessness, 20 two- to four-bedroom single-family homes held in ownership, and 40 two- and three-bedroom apartments, some structured for rent-to-own.

"After doing many projects and subdivisions, I have learned that if you listen to the land, it will tell you what it wants to do. This Pepe'ekeo land spoke to us," said Jim Edmonds, PAL's founder and executive director, who has lived in Hawai'i for nearly five decades and previously developed three affordable housing projects along the Hāmākua Coast.

Hawai'i carries the highest median home sales price in the country, and competitive pressure from outside the state is intensifying: out-of-state buyers accounted for 21% of single-family home transactions in 2023, the same year Gov. Josh Green declared the shortage a statewide emergency. Without permanent stewardship, affordable units built today are merely on loan from the market.

Donations directed toward the Pepe'ekeo project can be made through PAL Hawai'i's website by selecting "PAL Big Island.