Hawaiʻi County needs housing that our families and our workforce can afford. The 2019 Hawaiʻi Housing Planning Study showed that 8.8% of households pay between 30-40% of their monthly household income toward housing, 21.8% pay over 40% toward housing, and that Hawaiʻi County needs 13,303 additional housing units by 2025. The Center for Neighborhood Technology combines transportation and housing costs to provide a more accurate measure of affordability, showing that Hawaiʻi County leads the state in unaffordable housing costs: households pay 61% of their income toward housing and transportation (paying over 30% of income toward household costs = shelter burdened).

In 2020, Vibrant Hawaiʻi formed the Hawaiʻi Island Housing Coalition to provide a platform for communication and collaboration, strengthen local response to provide a spectrum of affordable housing options, connect stakeholders for a deeper understanding of barriers, and encourage partnerships to organize for efficient and effective collective action.