For seven years, Pakala resident Trinity Adams has been on the Hawaiian Home Lands waiting list, along with tens of thousands of other applicants all hoping for their opportunity to be awarded a 99-year homestead lease for residential, agricultural or pastoral lands.
On Halloween, at a packed ball room at the Royal Sonesta Kaua‘i Resort in Līhu‘e, Adams dream was about to come true.
“I feel like I am going to cry when they call my name,” said the 38-year-old, who attended with her daughter who turns 1 on Monday.
“It’s so emotional because my kids are gonna finally have a home. It’s hard. I’ve been homeless before. I actually don’t even have a place of my own right now; I’m staying with my mom. Times are hard right now for me, but I’m trying to work my way up that ladder.”
On Saturday, the State Department of Hawaiian Home Lands offered 832 residential homestead leases on Kauaʻi for planned communities in Hanapēpē and Līhuʻe. There was plenty of cheers and tears of happiness.
The Hanapēpē project consists of 82 single-family home lots, while the Līhu‘e development includes 750 single-family homestead lots on an approximately 260-acre property acquired from Grove Farm last December by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.
The 832 residential leases is nearly half of the 1,712 applicants who are on the residential waiting list on Kauaʻi as of June 2025.
Kari Watson, director of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, said that following Act 279, $600 million was appropriated with general state funds in 2022 to work on reducing the waiting lilst by getting more people leases.
Watson said the funding has generated about 22 projects around the state, “which has been primarily the installation of the infrastructure and vertical construction, while using different approaches with the tax credits.”
On July 9, 1921, President Warren G. Harding signed the federal Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920 that was spearheaded by Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana‘ole and a group of advocates. The Act intended to return native Hawaiians to the land while encouraging them to become self-sufficient homesteaders on the leased parcels of trust land, according to the state website.
“Prince Kūhio’s vision was to return his people because he felt that only by doing that, but more importantly, to their culture, they could reconnect as a community,” Watson said. “… But more importantly, have a place where you can raise your family, protect the kūpuna, have your kids grow in an environment conducive not only to learning but, more importantly, to being a part of a future generation, and that’s what we have here today.”
Watson added: “It’s very important that you, as a recipient, understand that there’s a certain amount of responsibility or kuleana that comes with the award of this homestead lease.”
Under the department’s homestead program, beneficiaries need to be 50% Hawaiian. They receive a land lease for $1 a year but they have to buy or build their own home unless the project is rental housing.
If a lessee dies, the lease can be passed to a family member with at least 25% Hawaiian blood, according to the federal act. Such successors also can inherit project leases, but they cannot get on a waiting list in place of a beneficiary relative who dies without a lease.
Both homestead projects on Kauaʻi are still years from completion.
Also attending the event was U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda, Kaua‘i Mayor Derek S.K. Kawakami, County Council members, members of the Hawaiian Homes Commission, beneficiaries and their families.
“Today we are gonna be awarding 832 cases, and over 1400 letters went out to all of them,” Tokuda said. “I know that behind every single letter is a family and a story and years, if not decades, generations of waiting for the chance to call this place home.”
She also noted that the oldest application dates to the 1970s. When she asked the crowd how many of them had been on the waiting list since the 1970s, a handful of residents raised their hands.
State House Rep. Luke Evslin, who was celebrating his birthday, said it is his commitment “to do everything that I can to try and get the bills passed to ensure that these projects, these schools, turn into housing as soon as we possibly can do it.”
Kauaʻi Mayor Derek S.K. Kawakami told the crowd: “Today is a great day, It is a momentous occasion, and for me, as I transition out from the best 8 years of my life, I wanna take this opportunity to thank everybody, but most importantly, the people of Kauaʻi and Niʻihau for giving me this opportunity to live my dream and to see yours come true.”
