July 06, 2004
The High Cost of Paradise
" Is it my imagination or is the price of food rising before my very eyes?..." a local lady said to me at the Safeway, where us haoles shop to get the stuff we like from the mainland...I said "its more than the food, its everything..."
Its getting more expensive by the month here in East Hawaii. Housing rose 22% in the period ending 2002 to 2003. In the period starting this year, housing prices rose 5%
per month The median price for a home on the Big Island is now over $300,000 and million dollar homes are found in every district. In our district, Puna, the price is to a median 170,000. Its was 75,000 when we bought here in 2001. Not a bad investment, but if we choose to downsize there is no place for us to go... but to leave the island.
We have only our kind to blame. People like Woody and I, Boomers... brought our mainland cash and paid full price, that jacks the prices up. we have seen this in places like Florida,Oregon and Washington as well. Now Hawaii. These aren't speculators, these are folks like us that are buying so they can live in the houses. Its a huge migration the likes of which have not been seen in decades.
The high home prices push up everything, food, utilities and services, as the demand increases. As the prices go up wages have to go up. Here in Hilo we were told that "these jobs will only pay minimum wage, its not about your skills...", that is going to change as the cost of living goes up, it has to and there is no getting around it, when it does the prices go up ever further...Inflation at its hotest. I read recently that we have the hottest economy in the nation and one of the lowest unemployment rates. I believe it. Woody is trying to find permanant housing in Kona, there are jobs in the 12-20 dollar per hour range going begging...
The sad thing is that the locals are being pushed out of the market. Where will their kids live? Where there is a shortage of affordable housing or rentals there is now nothing. should Woody and I lose our home to the bank ( a near possiblity recently, ) we will be under a blue tarp, because renting something is very very difficult.
On top of this is seeing the struggle that it takes for folks to make ends meet. When you are working two minimum wage jobs, going to the store is a tough go. I see moms all the time putting meat back in the check out line and I know that its spam and rice for another week...no wonder that we have the highest incedence of Type II diabetes in the nation in this county. The way you have to eat is really bad... I know we eat a lot of peanut butter toast and rice here too. People eat a lot of papaya out of their yards for meals. (I hate them, tastes like soap to me )
I dont say all of this to have you feel sorry for me or the people here. I think that what is going on here is true in much of the nation. This is a difficult time, the division between the haves and the have nots is great. But I am not advocating government intervention or hand outs, nor do I believe that there is anything that anyone person can do to stop the trends that are reshaping this island. Those sorts of remedies are just short of totallitarin, and not what a free society should do which is to allow the market to dictate what happens.
I do wonder though, as I have in other posts, what will Hawaii be like without Hawaiians? Or without the other Island people that have come here from outposts of Polynesia that will never in their wildest dreams have the money to buy a house. Even if the Hawaiians get the homested land promised by the Treaty and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, if it is too expensive to build or you have no contractor wanting to take your job as it is too little, then what...? I think were are losing the soul of the islands, the money and the striving to survive is beating the spirit out of the people. Its a tragic thing, but totally unavoidable.