Last Chance to Become a SPCA Wildlife Volunteer

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The agency has found available housing but is struggling to get people to move in. On Friday, it ends its support for the emergency hotel program.

Nearly 500 empty condos, apartments and houses are being paid for by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as part of its program to house Maui wildfire survivors.

A Civil Beat review of federal contracting records and interviews with FEMA officials show the agency has so far committed to pay nearly $200 million to three out-of-state property management companies. Those companies oversee 1,335 direct leases with Maui property owners to house people who lost their homes in the Aug. 8 fire in Lahaina.

Each month, FEMA is writing checks to North Carolina-based Aesthetic Home Investments, California-based Lima Charlie and Florida-based Fedcology/Parliament to cover the costs of all the properties participating in the program, regardless of whether anyone is living in them, according to FEMA officials. Those companies keep a percentage of the money in fees and other costs and then in turn pay the property owners who are leasing their homes out, generally under one-year contracts.

FEMA officials would not provide a breakdown of how the money is being spent or how much has been paid to date. Civil Beat has repeatedly asked FEMA why public money is still being spent on so many empty units.

The Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa in Kaanapali is one of many resorts that has been housing Aug. 8 wildfire survivors for months through FEMA’s emergency sheltering program. (Cammy Clark/Civil Beat/2024)

As of last week, fire survivors had moved into 835 of the 1,335 units the agency has leased directly from property owners, Curtis Brown, FEMA’s deputy federal coordinating officer, said in an interview with Civil Beat.

That left 500 vacant units at that time that FEMA was paying for. Brown has said at public Lahaina recovery update meetings for the past few months that people are still getting paid for empty units.

Data posted on the federal website usaspending.gov indicates total costs including rent, property management fees, utilities, maintenance and other expenses average more than $12,000 per month per unit.

One of the contracts with Lima Charlie, for instance, shows FEMA has paid the company $59,000 since January. The agency has committed to pay up to $420,000 through next January, according to the federal data. But it’s unclear how many properties that includes, where they are located or if anyone lives in them yet because FEMA would not provide the individual contracts.

Federal data online shows one of the numerous contracts FEMA has awarded Lima Charlie to house Maui fire survivors through its direct-lease program. (USASpending.gov/2024)

With 500 or so vacant units as of last week, FEMA would have spent more than $5 million on empty housing in April alone.

There were roughly 600 vacant units one month ago being paid for by FEMA as the agency tried to quicken its pace. And most of the vacancies date to January or February when the majority of the contracts were signed, the point at which the payments begin.

The program started in November as an interim solution to move thousands of fire survivors out of pricey and cramped hotel rooms and into longer-term, more comfortable homes with kitchens. Property owners signed up for the relatively lucrative deal, but it was still a challenge to get people to move into the units — largely because most are outside of West Maui, away from jobs, schools, doctors and their community.

FEMA officials, property managers, fire survivors and others say it has taken months to successfully match survivors with units.

In addition to location issues, overly strict federal regulations governing living arrangements have been a problem. In some cases, larger families have been required to have units with more bedrooms even though they would accept smaller places. Some people have been unable to pass background checks or had problems getting them.

Roughly 13,000 people were displaced by the Aug. 8 fires in Lahaina and Upcountry Maui. Nearly 1,600 are still living in hotels set up as emergency shelters while hundreds of other households have moved into FEMA’s direct-lease units. (Nathan Eagle/Civil Beat/2023)

FEMA would not provide the individual contracts with the companies, but Bob Fenton, who has been leading FEMA’s Maui fire recovery efforts since August, told Civil Beat last month that property owners in the program were being paid an average of $6,000 per month.

But without the contracts, it’s impossible to tell how much is going to the property owner versus the management company and other costs.

Local property managers say the average monthly rate for property management of long-term leases on Maui is 10% to 15%, with a higher first month rate for setting up the account, conducting background checks and inspections.

“Obviously, anything with government has additional costs; we have to meet certain protections,” Fenton said when asked why FEMA was paying so much more than the going rate for property management.

FEMA would not provide a breakdown of the number of units managed by each company, but according to federal data, the agency has committed to pay Lima Charlie $128.3 million, Fedcology/Parliament $46.9 million and Aesthetic Home Investments $23.7 million for a total of $198.87 million. That figure fluctuates day to day based on how many property owners are contracted, as some have dropped out of the program and new ones have been added.

Curtis Brown, FEMA’s deputy federal coordinating officer, says of about 1,300 units contracted with the direct-lease program, about 500 were still sitting empty as of this week. (Kevin Fujii/Civil Beat/2024)

David Greenburg, who heads Fedcology/Parliament, and David Waldbauer, president of Lima Charlie, did not respond to repeated calls and emails. Iesha Carmichael, president of Aesthetic Home Investments, declined an interview request.

R. Austin Oyler, an attorney representing Aesthetic’s president, said in an email last month that “AHI processed over 180 units in the prior three months, which it believes to be a tremendous result.”

All three companies provided property owners a list of requirements to make sure their unit could pass a FEMA inspection — including changing out double beds for single beds in some rooms, providing a specific type of fire extinguisher and installing smoke alarms. Several property owners said they took care of these requirements themselves before a lease was signed.

An owner of a two-bedroom, 1.5-bath home on South Kihei Road received two rent payments of approximately $9,000 each while the property was sitting empty. Fire survivors have since moved in, the owner said. The owner asked not to be named for this story.

With about 13,000 people losing their homes in the fires on Maui, which already was experiencing a housing crisis, the direct-lease program was set up to convert short-term rentals into long-term housing fire survivors for at least a year, and possibly up to two years, while new housing projects are built in Lahaina and elsewhere on Maui.

County, state and federal officials have said for months that the biggest reason many units have sat empty is the challenge of getting fire survivors to move away from West Maui.

Gov. Josh Green said last week at a press conference about housing that some people have turned down matches “four, five, six times.”

From left, Maui Mayor Richard Bissen listens to Gov. Josh Green as an ASL interpreter relays a message from FEMA’s Bob Fenton during a press conference in October in Wailuku. The state will have to pick up the tab for housing fire survivors in hotels after Friday unless FEMA again extends the deadline. (Kevin Fujii/Civil Beat/2023)

In an effort to more quickly move survivors out of the resorts, the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency on March 14 announced a policy that limits the number of times survivors can turn down federal or state-provided housing options and still remain in the emergency temporary program.

“We’re just at a point now where more people are engaged in filling out the paperwork,” Fenton said. “We have the units. It’s a matter of them completing the background checks. It’s a matter of matching people up. It’s a matter of them being responsive.”

The direct-lease program also has had difficulty securing enough units that could accommodate pets and people with disabilities.

Brown, of FEMA, said the process is now being expedited by having all three property management companies use the same background checks and a “deeper communication with the survivor.”

He said about 27 households per day are now being moved into a direct lease home.

People like Joy Newman, a 71-year-old with medical problems whose Lahaina apartment was destroyed in the Aug. 8 fire, have appreciated what the program offers. She said she had tried to find a place on her own, but after a fruitless search, she gave up and went through the FEMA process for a direct lease.

It took months, but finally two weeks ago, Newman, who uses a walker and had recently undergone surgery for cancer, was matched with a unit in West Maui that could accommodate her needs and her Chihuahua named Malia. The unit had been sitting empty for a couple of months.

Fire survivor Joy Newman, 71, and her dog Malia were happy to move out of a resort hotel and into a condo in West Maui through FEMA’s direct-lease program. (Cammy Clark/Civil Beat/2024)

While Newman wishes it had happened sooner, she said it has been a relief to move out of the hotel room at the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa, her sixth lodging since the fire, and into a condo along the beach with turtles.

“Oh my heavens,” she said. “I can cook the food I can eat. With my rheumatoid arthritis, there’s so many things I can’t have. This is making a huge difference in how I feel. And my dog is finally settling in.”

It almost didn’t happen because FEMA personnel were concerned about Newman having to negotiate three stairs into the condo. But Newman said she convinced them she could handle it.

And while she is planning to have her bed moved into the living room because the wind and street noise in the bedroom make it difficult to sleep, she said everything else is wonderful.

“It’s not the perfect system, but it’s a system we’ve been able to make work,” Fenton said.

Meanwhile, FEMA is also funding approximately 135 households still living in the resorts through its temporary emergency housing program that it contracted with the state and is being run by the American Red Cross. The program was at one point costing an estimated $1,000 per day per household, but likely is less now that the survivors are being provided two less meals per day.

Green said last week that the state thinks the remaining households eligible for the FEMA program living in the hotels is closer to 400 and is continuing to discuss this with FEMA. For months, the state has been paying for the households who are not eligible for FEMA housing.

As of Tuesday, there were 629 households representing 1,596 people and 149 pets living in the hotel program at seven locations. Friday is the deadline for FEMA to stop reimbursing the state for its eligible households in this program.

FEMA has extended the deadline several times, but it has not said if it will do so again, which would leave the state to pick up the tab while it tries to find homes for those still staying in the hotels.

Green has said he expects to have almost everyone out of the hotels by July 1.

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.

Trump: Jews should be ‘ashamed’ if they vote for Biden

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The most powerful elected Republican in America declared war on the rule of law yesterday.

House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that Congress, on behalf of wannabee “day one” dictator Donald Trump, is going to use every power available to him and his colleagues to nullify America’s court system.

“President Trump has done nothing wrong here and he continues to be the target of endless lawfare. It has to stop. And you’re gonna see the United States Congress address this in every possible way that we can, because we need accountability. … All these cases need to be dropped, because they are a threat to our system.”

READ: Governor Kristi Noem didn’t have to shoot her dog — she wanted to

“All these cases” and potential future cases include Trump:

— Sharing secrets with Russia that burned US and US ally spies.
— Inciting rebellion against the United States on January 6th.
— Running his businesses from the White House while multiple foreign governments poured cash into his properties in violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause.
— Stealing national defense secrets from the White House, transporting them to Florida and New Jersey, and then lying to the FBI about them.
— Raping and then threatening and defaming E. Jean Carroll.
— Criminally obstructing investigations into his campaign’s ties to Russia.
— Conspiring with Republicans in multiple states to defraud the American people with forged Electoral College certificates.
— Threatening Georgia’s Secretary of State with criminal prosecution if he wouldn’t “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have.”
— Violating campaign finance laws on multiple occasions.
— Committing tax and insurance fraud.
— Extorting a foreign leader to manufacture dirt on his political opponent.

And those are just Trump’s commonly known crimes; we haven’t yet begun to dig into other consequential crimes Trump committed to become president in 2016 and during his four years in office.

From his teenage years violating fair housing laws by marking rental applications for his father’s properties with a “C” for “colored” when Black people applied, to decades of business crimes including a fraudulent “university” and fake charity, to stealing money from thousands of employees and contractors, Trump has been a one-man crime wave his entire life.

And now, given the choice between throwing in with a career criminal or defending America’s criminal justice system, separation of powers, and the rule of law, today’s Republicans have chosen to throw in with the crook. Barry Goldwater and Everett Dirksen are rolling over in their graves.

The foundational genesis of the world’s modern democracies was established on June 15, 1215 when the lords and barons of England forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, guaranteeing they could only be imprisoned or stripped of their assets through an open and transparent legal process. It forced the British royal to submit himself to the rule of law.

For four hundred years the right of habeas corpus extended only to the British nobility, but a series of revolts in the 1600s extended it to “commoner” knights working for the king and to a few others. Over the next hundred years, these rights were more broadly applied in Great Britain and other European republics and, in 1789, to citizens of the United States.

And now one of America’s two political parties, following the example of nations like Russia and Hungary — whose leaders earlier this century rejected the rule of law in favor of oligarchy and autocracy — have similarly turned away from this 809-year-long tradition.

Republican democracy, as our Founders defined our nation, can’t survive in the absence of the rule of law.

John Adams was fond of quoting Aristotle’s saying that “no government can stand which is not founded upon justice.” He wrote the first draft of the Massachusetts constitution, and was particularly proud of his authorship of its Article XXX, which he frequently cited:

“In the government of the commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them; the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them; the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them; to the end that it may be a government of laws, and not of men.”

Republicans and rightwing hate media are hysterical about Stormy Daniel’s testimony yesterday in a New York City courthouse. Fox “News’” Kayleigh McEnany was particularly upset that Daniels was allowed to detail Trump’s extramarital romp:

“Imagine if you’re a juror on this case and you are a female juror and you are hearing these details. You cannot get that out of your mind.”

The simple reality is that all Americans should have heard, in the weeks before the 2016 election, about Trump’s coercing Daniel’s into having sex: If it had come out after the Access Hollywood tape, Hillary Clinton would have been our president, three rightwing cranks wouldn’t have been put on the Supreme Court, abortion would still be regulated by Roe v Wade, our democracy would be intact, and we’d be years ahead on getting climate change under control.

Instead, once Russian Intelligence learned that the Access Hollywood tape was going to be released on October 7, 2016 (fewer than four weeks before the November 5th election), it appears they — along with Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, and David Pecker — choreographed a series of efforts to refocus voters’ attention on Hillary Clinton and prevent the story of Trump’s previous philandering from coming out.

The Access Hollywood tape — which had been held by US news agencies for at least a day and probably several while it was being authenticated — dropped at 3:30 PM ET just 30 minutes after the DHS and DNI reported:

“The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts.
“These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow—the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.”

Stormy Daniel’s publicist immediately began pushing her story to The National Enquirer, with negotiations settling on $130,000 and a signed non-disclosure agreement executed on October 10th.

That same month, FBI Agent Charles McGonigal, who shared multiple connections to Rudy Giuliani and was later prosecuted and is now in prison for his work on behalf of a Russian oligarch, worked out of the FBI’s New York office and was in charge of the investigation into Trump’s connections to Russia.

His office repeatedly leaked damning false speculation about Hillary’s emails, leading Rudy Giuliani to tell Fox “News” on October 26, two weeks before the election:

“I do think that all of these revelations about Hillary Clinton are beginning to have an impact. I think [Donald Trump’s] got a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next few days. I mean, I’m talking about some pretty big surprises… We’ve got a couple of things up our sleeve that should turn this thing around.”

As The New York Post reported:

“It was agents of that [NY FBI] office, probing Anthony Weiner’s alleged sexting of a minor, who pressed Comey to authorize the review of possible Hillary Clinton-related emails on a Weiner device that led to the explosive letter the director wrote Congress.”

Two days later, James Comey caved to the pressure from McGonigal’s office, the media, Russian Intelligence, and Giuliani: He held a press conference on October 28th to announce a renewed investigation into Hillary’s emails. Trump rushed to the TV cameras and said:

“As you know I’ve had plenty of words about the FBI lately, but I give them great credit for having the courage to right this horrible wrong. Justice will prevail.”

Secretary Clinton was outraged, telling the media:

“We are 11 days out from perhaps the most important national election in our lifetimes. Voting is already under way in our country.”

With the Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal stories safely buried by Trump’s conspiracy with Michael Cohen and David Pecker, as Nate Cohn reported for The New York Times, the “look at Clinton, forget about Access Hollywood” (my phrase, not theirs) campaign was successful:

“Mr. Comey’s letter came about one week after the third presidential debate and less than two weeks before Election Day. At that time, most polling averages showed Mrs. Clinton ahead by around six percentage points in national polls. A week later, her lead had declined to three points. …
“Late-deciding voters broke overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump, the exit polls showed, and the Comey letter and its disclosure of new information in the email investigation was a significant part of the news coverage over the last week of the election.”

Russia’s efforts and Trump’s criminal conspiracy cost Clinton the election and now, as Speaker Johnson told us yesterday, Republicans in the House of Representatives will be doing everything they can to bury that fact and generate a whole new set of distractions as we head toward this November’s election.

When it comes to seizing power, they are telling us that they believe the rule of law, and thus our democracy, is merely an inconvenient impediment to be brushed aside. They clearly understand the importance of yesterday’s testimony and these trials.

American democracy suffers — perhaps fatally — if their efforts (and Aileen Cannon’s) cause Trump to get away with his crimes and return to the White House.

Vote. And tell your friends.

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