Column: Helping educators attain homes will help build Hawaii’s future By Keith Amemiya, Terry George and Alex Lofton May 5, 2019
Building Hawaii’s future needs a foundation of deeply-rooted educators. And they need stable, attainable homes. A thriving Hawaii begins with quality education. We must prepare our keiki to become the workers and executives who drive Hawaii’s businesses and economy into the future. But our educators are leaving at an alarming rate. And they’re leaving because they cannot afford to purchase a home here. The Hawaii Department of Education reports 1,000 teachers leave HIDOE each year, with over 50% citing the high cost of living in Hawaii as their reason for resignation. Because many educators feel forced to share housing with family or roommates. To get ahead, those who can do so choose to transfer to another state or leave the field of education altogether. We need our educators to deepen their roots in Hawaii if we want the educational workforce our schools and students deserve. National research shows teachers with stable housing are more likely to stay in the classroom, so we must find ways to make it financially possible for educators to buy homes in Hawaii. That’s why leaders across our state have come together to welcome Landed, an innovative social impact company that will help educators purchase their own home by providing access to down payment support as well as a variety of home-buying services, including financial coaching. This is one step forward — a specific tool to help us start advancing educators’ ability to secure stable, attainable housing in the communities they serve. And it is a result of business and community leaders pledging their collective effort to take action to solve our state’s most pressing problems, those identified in the CHANGE framework. CHANGE is the Hawaii Community Foundation’s overarching long-term vision for improving the quality of life throughout Hawaii, with focus in six key areas: Community & Economy, Health & Wellness, Arts & Culture, Natural Environment, Government & Civics and Education. When presented at last October’s Hawaii Executive Conference, we dedicated our support as business and philanthropy leaders in education.
For over three years, Landed, a California-based company, has been working to address the access to homeownership for our educators in the nation’s most expensive cities. Landed found that, while many educator households are able to afford a monthly payment of an 80% mortgage, they have difficulty saving for a 20% down payment. By providing half of the 20% down payment in exchange for part of the appreciation gain (or loss, if any) when the home is sold or the homebuyer otherwise buys out the support, Landed could help to reduce the risk of homeownership and increase the ability of educators to afford homes. Landed is not a loan; it is a shared equity co-investment. To date, Landed has helped hundreds of people into homes worth more than $100 million in the metro areas of Denver, San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego and Los Angeles. Its partnership with Hawaii is Landed’s single largest to date. We must find more fair, market-based solutions to address the challenges our kamaaina face. By using a shared equity program — not a grant or a loan — Landed will use the market to help address one part of the housing challenge for educators. This marketbased approach alleviates pressure on public and philanthropic dollars to solve these kinds of problems, so that government, nonprofits and foundations can stay focused on our lowest income and most vulnerable neighbors. Join us in the effort to help retain Hawaii’s best education professionals and secure the innovation and productivity of tomorrow’s workforce. Looking ahead, our state needs kokua from everyone. ——— For more on homebuyer-education sessions this month, see www.landed.com/events; for more on the Hawaii CHANGE Initiative, see hawaiicommunityfoundation.org/change.