A group rallying to help secondary victims of the August wildfires is asking Gov. Josh Green to extend protections for tenants facing evictions from landlords seeking more lucrative rental income tied to subsidized housing for displaced fire survivors.

The governor’s current Ninth Emergency Proclamation on Wildfires expires March 5. It includes a prohibition against rental price increases and evictions, but members of the Maui Tenants & Workers Association told reporters Thursday that there are loopholes that allow evictions when a rental unit is up for sale, being renovated or needed for housing of an immediate family member.

Contacted Thursday afternoon, the Governor’s Office said the emergency proclamations expire every 60 days, and “the administration’s intention is to keep the wildfire EP active.”

Lori Rabanes said she has been using the emergency proclamation to shield her from being evicted from a four-bedroom Kahului home where she pays $3,500 per month in rent. Her home houses 17 people, including a 3-year-old grandchild. She also has two adopted keiki and two foster children, including a 17-year-old set to graduate this year from high school.

She said she has been looking for a new rental because, if the governor’s proclamation expires, she and her family won’t have a place to live.

“There is nothing out there,” she said. “I can’t find a home.”

Rabanes said she’s paid hundreds of dollars in application fees for Realtors to check her credit. In turn, Realtors reached out to her and asked: “Are you a Lahaina victim? That’s the first thing they said. And, I said, ‘No.’ And she told me, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t rent to you.’ And, I said, ‘Why not?’ She said, ‘The unit we have is for Lahaina victims.'”

“My heart does go out to those Lahaina victims,” she said.

Her husband worked at the Royal Lahaina Lūʻau and was on his way to work Aug. 8 when he saw the chaos of the wildfire while stuck in traffic on the Lahaina Bypass.

“My husband lost his job,” she said.

Rabanes said she has been looking high and low for housing, on Craigslist and elsewhere.

“Nobody wants to rent to us,” she said, not because of her family’s size. “It’s because of (money for) the Lahaina victims. You know I’m a victim as well.”

“My husband is talking about moving off island,” she said. “I don’t want to move. I’m born and raised here. Why do I have to move because I can’t find a home?”

Former Harbor Lights tenant Christie Cummings said she has been homeless, staying with family and friends, since leaving her two-bedroom unit with her husband and 11-year-old daughter on Jan. 31.

Cummings was in a dispute with her landlord over an unfixed broken window, but decided not to fight the eviction because her family could lose its federal housing voucher, and “I did not want to go that route.” However, she maintains her family was illegally evicted because it’s the landlord’s responsibility to make repairs.

People in about 15 units at the Harbor Lights complex also are fighting evictions or have been forced to leave, she said, adding that “there are only a few of us that actually got evicted.”

One of those staying and fighting is Lea Vitello, who lives with her husband and twin 9-year-old boys in a two-bedroom, 1.5-bath unit. She received an eviction notice Feb. 6, but that came after a series of “suspicious” back-and-forth communications with her landlord.

In December, Vitello’s landlord said in an email she was “going through something and needed her place back.”

“She kept changing her story,” Vitello said.

Later, she said, two Federal Emergency Management Agency inspectors showed up at her apartment because her landlord was trying to get approved for the agency’s Direct Lease program that helps wildfire victims get housing with rents that are above market prices.

Vitello said one of the FEMA inspectors saw her twin boys and was “very upset,” saying the situation was “ridiculous.”

Earlier this week, FEMA announced it will reject landlords from its Direct Lease program if property owners try to illegally force tenants out to gain higher rents from the FEMA program. The agency also pledged to report such cases of profiteering to state and federal authorities.

Vitello said she called FEMA to complain Wednesday but didn’t have the correct contact number. She said she contacted the Hawaiʻi Department of the Attorney General, and an investigator called her after talking to her landlord. According to Vitello, her landlord has turned off her power, restricted her parking accessibility and undertaken other harassment.

She said the AG investigator took the landlord’s side in the dispute and told her that “my landlord had every right; she was well within her rights to do what she was doing.”

That is “complete bogus,” she said, adding that she’s current with her monthly rent of $2,808.

Vitello said she needs more time to figure out alternative housing.

“My kids are in school,” she said. “They were born two months’ premature, so they need to be in school. And, where the hell are we going to go? We have nowhere to go.”

Maui County Council Member Gabe Johnson supported the group of protesters in person during the press conference, saying “they’re doing great work.”

The governor’s emergency proclamation needs to be extended to protect tenants from illegal evictions, he said.

“Our tenants, our renters, if they do get evicted and they do go to court, they’re never represented by a lawyer, it’s always the landlord who has representation, so they always get the short end of the stick,” Johnson said. “There was a housing crisis before the fires, and now it’s only exacerbated.”

Axel Beers, Johnson’s executive assistant, read a statement during the press conference, expressing support for extension of the governor’s eviction and rent-increase moratorium.

“And we support closing loopholes that allow opportunistic landlords to take advantage of our community’s recovery from the tragic August fires,” Beers said.

An estimated 1,500 local families have left Maui since the wildfires, he said. More than 4,000 people on Maui are living in temporary emergency shelter, and last month the median price of a single-family home in Maui County spiked to more than $1.3 million, he added.

“What we are seeing is the result of an under-regulated capitalist system, which allows, and even encourages, those with little conscience to put profit over people in our community’s time of need,” Beers said.