Schatz presses HUD on Maui recovery efforts, calls for additional federal funding

At a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) pressed federal officials on the recovery efforts on Maui and called for additional federal funding.

Schatz questioned top officials from key federal agencies—the Department of Transportation, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Department of Agriculture—about urgent long-term needs, including Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funding, for Maui following last year’s devastating fires.

Schatz questioned HUD Acting Secretary Adrianne Todman on housing for survivors, asking, “If we don’t fund CDBG-DR for Maui, what will happen to these Maui families?”

In response, Todman said, “At some point, there is going to be a need to shutdown some of the temporary housing arrangements that families have, notwithstanding what will be great attempts by the governor, the Maui County mayor, and yourself. Some of those people will leave Maui. Some of those folks, if they don’t find a home, may be rendered homeless, which of course, is not something any of us want.”

The hearing follows remarks delivered by Schatz on the Senate floor calling for long-term disaster relief funding. Following the Maui fires last year, Schatz has been leading efforts to deliver federal disaster relief funding to Hawai‘i and states across the country. He worked with congressional leaders and bipartisan colleagues to include $16 billion in disaster relief money as part of a short-term spending bill that was signed into law last year.