Latest / The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi / Kevin Auger on the City's 2025-2028 Strategic Housing Plan

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Kevin Auger on the City's 2025-2028 Strategic Housing Plan · The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi

• 0:14
  Welcome to the One Oahu podcast.
• 0:17
  I'm your host, Brandi Higa, and today is Thursday, February 13th, 2025.
• 0:22
  And we're joined this week by the city's Housing Director, Kevin Auger.
• 0:25
  Kevin.
• 0:26
  Thanks for making some time for us.
• 0:27
  Brandi, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.
• 0:30
  So first off,
• 0:31
  I know there's been several, changes, but tell us about your department.
• 0:35
  What are you responsible for?
• 0:37
  Certainly.
• 0:37
  I'm currently the executive director for the Mayor's Office of Housing,
• 0:40
  and we have a staff of five people.
• 0:42
  And I'm responsible for coordinating policy within the city government.
• 0:46
  Five people, though
• 0:48
  I know that that's, you know, housing and a little bit of land management.
• 0:51
  Is that enough? Is five people enough? No.
• 0:54
  In fact, Freddie, when the mayor,
• 0:57
  originally took office, there were there was exactly one person
• 1:01
  in the office, one person for a population of over a million.
• 1:04
  And, we've been working for the last year and a half
• 1:07
  to combine the Office of Housing with the Department of Land Management.
• 1:10
  Right. And that office will pull together.
• 1:13
  That department will pull together 50 professionals.
• 1:16
  So we can really go out attacking this wicked problem.
• 1:19
  And so what is this wicked problem, exactly?
• 1:21
  You know, like, if you were to go to visit a school
• 1:24
  and do, you know, career day thing, what do you do?
• 1:27
  What do you tell them you. Do try to build more housing?
• 1:29
  I mean, that's really at the end of the day, the bottom line.
• 1:31
  We've had a housing affordable housing problem for almost 50 years, in the state.
• 1:36
  And it just continues to get worse.
• 1:39
  The average cost of a single family home median price is $1.1 million.
• 1:44
  Nobody can really afford that.
• 1:45
  The only way that we're really going to address
• 1:46
  that is to bring more affordable housing to the market,
• 1:50
  to make a future generations affordable.
• 1:52
  Yeah. Something you said there, though, right?
• 1:54
  The deficit that we have in the state.
• 1:56
  What is the city's responsibility?
• 1:58
  What's the difference there between the city's responsibility and then the state?
• 2:01
  Well, it's.
• 2:01
  Really it's really all about working together and collaborating.
• 2:04
  We have an enormously successful and collaborative, relationship currently
• 2:09
  with the state, and I hope we can continue that for the next four years.
• 2:12
  We meet regularly with our state partners, and when we talk about our state
• 2:16
  partners, we're talking about the why Housing Finance Development Corporation,
• 2:20
  we're talking about the Office of Planning and Sustainable Development.
• 2:23
  We're talking about the Hawaii Housing Public Authority and most importantly,
• 2:27
  the governor's office.
• 2:28
  Yeah.
• 2:29
  And so, where were you before this?
• 2:32
  Before, coming to the city.
• 2:33
  I was with the Hawaii public housing. Okay.
• 2:36
  And what do you think prepared you for this role?
• 2:38
  How was the redevelopment officer there?
• 2:40
  And we had, approximately 100 acres along the rail.
• 2:44
  And I got a close up view of just how difficult it is to bring property
• 2:48
  online and new development online, in a state context.
• 2:53
  So with that background, do you think that helps?
• 2:56
  You know, maybe the relationships that you built prior to coming here
• 2:59
  and the ability to, like you said, you know, it is about collaboration
• 3:02
  to do the job that you're doing now.
• 3:04
  The experience has been absolutely essential.
• 3:07
  Building those relationships with folks over the last 7 or 8 years
• 3:11
  and having the experience, the hands on experience, understanding,
• 3:14
  working with development partners, just how difficult it is to bring property
• 3:18
  online has been an enormous help to me.
• 3:21
  But more important than that, it's
• 3:22
  also given me a better understanding, a keener understanding for what we can do
• 3:26
  to make the process better, faster and to be able to deliver more housing.
• 3:30
  Yeah.
• 3:31
  You know, Kevin, we thought it was appropriate
• 3:32
  to get you on because the city recently announced a strategic housing plan
• 3:36
  for the next four years.
• 3:38
  What makes this different from past efforts?
• 3:41
  And why do you think now was the right time to roll this out?
• 3:44
  Sure, Bernie.
• 3:45
  You know, as we mentioned in the press conference when we released
• 3:48
  that plan, the plan really represents the boldest initiative
• 3:52
  the city has undertaken to address affordable housing the last 25 years.
• 3:56
  And one of the key features of that is obviously bringing
• 3:58
  the team together, having the platform to be able to execute.
• 4:02
  But more importantly, we're moving from a from a policy platform
• 4:05
  to an execution platform, a platform where we actually to, partner
• 4:10
  with development professionals in the field to deliver more housing.
• 4:14
  You mentioned when you were talking about your background, all of the experience
• 4:18
  that you've had along that rail line.
• 4:19
  So when we talk about transit oriented development or Tod that people hear often,
• 4:24
  this is a major focus in this plan that was just announced.
• 4:27
  But how will projects like the Eveleigh Tod and expansion
• 4:30
  of skyline help address this crisis we keep talking about in housing?
• 4:35
  That's a just a great question, Brandi.
• 4:38
  You know, the skyline is now a reality.
• 4:40
  The first phase has been energized.
• 4:42
  The second phase should open before the end of 2025 this year.
• 4:46
  And the third phase should see rail cars rolling through downtown.
• 4:50
  And by 2031, the city recently acquired made a major investment.
• 4:55
  I think it was the largest acquisition
• 4:57
  the city has ever made in acquiring the Everly Center.
• 5:00
  That's a four acre site that's directly adjacent to the rail line.
• 5:05
  Additionally, a few weeks before that, we had acquired for 45 South King Street,
• 5:10
  which was the former First Hawaiian Bank branch.
• 5:13
  When we looked at those two acquisitions and existing property
• 5:16
  that the city owned in that area of an overall 18 acre site,
• 5:21
  the city owned approximately seven acres and the state owned approximately six.
• 5:26
  So between the government entities
• 5:29
  that we controlled at roughly 75% of that site.
• 5:33
  So that created an incredible opportunity to take a look at remaster planning
• 5:36
  that area.
• 5:37
  So we could provide for Tod development right downtown.
• 5:40
  And we did a couple of neat things.
• 5:42
  One is we worked with
• 5:43
  an organization called the center for Creative Land Recycling,
• 5:47
  so we could start to model what would be, what the potential of that site would be.
• 5:53
  And we learned very early in that we could potentially develop within that area
• 5:57
  1500 to 2000 units of housing, conservatively.
• 6:02
  The other neat thing about that site is it strictly adjacent
• 6:05
  to Chinatown and within walking distance of downtown.
• 6:08
  So now we can create an area where folks can live, work and play
• 6:12
  within walking distance to downtown and jobs in an area
• 6:16
  where they would be less dependent on automobiles.
• 6:19
  And it's it's also really exciting because we worked with Hart
• 6:23
  to reorient the existing train station there, the Cooley's train station,
• 6:28
  so that it faced the new center that we acquired
• 6:32
  and hopefully will be breaking ground on within the next four years.
• 6:35
  But we also, we worked with Hart to accommodate a couple of stub outs
• 6:41
  at the guide rail level to provide for pedestrian access
• 6:45
  so we can have direct pedestrian bridges right into the new development.
• 6:48
  So if you think about that for a second, if we correlate government services
• 6:52
  in that, in that building, folks can get on the train and ever,
• 6:55
  you know, ride 20 minutes, get off the train,
• 6:57
  go take care of the business, get it back on the train again, right.
• 7:00
  And never have to get in the car.
• 7:01
  So very very exciting.
• 7:03
  We're also looking at some really exciting, potentials there.
• 7:07
  Our parks department, because we collaborate so closely,
• 7:10
  is looking at potentially locating a vertical park in the center
• 7:14
  might be an opportunity for libraries, early childhood education.
• 7:19
  So we're really, really excited about where
• 7:21
  we can potentially build there right on the rail.
• 7:24
  And what will that look like?
• 7:25
  Because what I think of now is the development that's happened recently in
• 7:29
  all right.
• 7:29
  A lot of folks actually my age live in that area now.
• 7:33
  You know, it's affordable for them.
• 7:34
  There's areas like, you know, salt where there's mixed retail and residential.
• 7:38
  Is it going to just kind of expand what they look like,
• 7:40
  what it looks like currently to their neighbors?
• 7:43
  Well, mixed use development is really key.
• 7:45
  And particularly right along the rail station,
• 7:47
  we worked with Hart to reconfigure the rail station.
• 7:50
  So that will actually give us the ability to, at the guide rail level, create
• 7:54
  pedestrian bridges for the first phase, which is the redevelopment of
• 7:58
  a center right.
• 7:59
  But the overall development will be mixed use.
• 8:01
  It's an area where people can live, work, play
• 8:04
  and not have to depend on their cars so much.
• 8:07
  Automobile, expense is the second
• 8:10
  largest expense for households in Hawaii.
• 8:13
  So folks don't have to rely on their cars as much.
• 8:16
  It'll just be much easier for them to live, work and play.
• 8:19
  Yeah, the city is leveraging public land to do this.
• 8:23
  Yes. Create more housing. Can you talk about it?
• 8:26
  Certainly.
• 8:26
  One of the great, one of the terrific assets that the city brings to the table
• 8:32
  in the affordable housing equation is the use of public lands.
• 8:36
  If developers can use the city's land and leverage city's land
• 8:39
  to build affordable housing, it's much less money that they have to spend on
• 8:43
  pre-development costs.
• 8:44
  Or they can focus their spending on pre-development costs versus
• 8:47
  having to buy land, tie up their capital in that land, sit on the land for long
• 8:52
  periods of time, will get their development
• 8:54
  approvals, entitlements and environmental clearances
• 8:58
  if they can leverage the city's land to do that.
• 9:00
  It's just a much better process for everyone.
• 9:02
  And whereas this worked previously. It works everywhere.
• 9:05
  It works throughout the United States, and we do this all over the US.
• 9:08
  And have we done that yet?
• 9:09
  Here in the state of Hawaii? We've done that.
• 9:10
  We've got a couple. Of projects that people would recognize.
• 9:13
  Yeah.
• 9:13
  In fact, we just held the grand opening for the villages of Kapolei with the,
• 9:17
  Kobayashi group. All right.
• 9:19
  And one of the distinct advantages that it was roughly 405 units.
• 9:22
  One of the distinct advantages and benefits of that development
• 9:26
  was there were six early classroom child
• 9:29
  early education classrooms that were built into the site.
• 9:33
  Okay. Yeah.
• 9:34
  So that's yeah,
• 9:34
  that's that's a little different than, you know, kind of your normal mixed use.
• 9:38
  But early education, that's.
• 9:40
  As far as we know, the early education classrooms were the first time
• 9:43
  that they were ever incorporated. Ever. Yeah.
• 9:45
  All right. So we're very excited about that. Yeah.
• 9:49
  And then you mentioned this, these developers, you know,
• 9:51
  you mentioned the Kobayashi group
• 9:52
  when it comes to working with them, the developers in town.
• 9:55
  Can you talk about that relationship and how you,
• 9:58
  you know, hope to see that impact grow?
• 10:00
  Yeah.
• 10:00
  It's really essential that we have public private
• 10:03
  partnerships to work with local developers to build housing.
• 10:08
  These are capacities that the city doesn't have,
• 10:10
  and we really don't want to be in the development business.
• 10:12
  We want to facilitate development.
• 10:14
  That's really the key for the city.
• 10:17
  Financing, though, is a big hurdle.
• 10:19
  You can't build them if you can't pay for them.
• 10:21
  Yeah. So can you explain how is the city exploring?
• 10:23
  Maybe new funding models? How is this going to work?
• 10:25
  Yeah, that's an excellent question, Brandi.
• 10:28
  The most
• 10:29
  effective resource that we have currently for the financing of affordable
• 10:33
  housing development is the low income housing tax credit.
• 10:36
  And low income housing tax credits need to be paired with private activity bonds.
• 10:41
  The challenge that we have is for all states, private activity bonds
• 10:44
  are capped at the state level, so there's only a certain amount.
• 10:48
  There's a maximum amount that you can effectively use
• 10:51
  in the in Hawaii that amounts roughly $360 million a year.
• 10:57
  The affordable housing tax credit, funding is organized
• 11:01
  by the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation.
• 11:04
  But when we look at their activities over the last five years,
• 11:07
  and we average the
• 11:09
  when we take the average award that's been granted over the last five years.
• 11:13
  It only allows for less than a thousand units a year.
• 11:15
  Development.
• 11:17
  I think it's the actual number is around 950 units a year.
• 11:20
  That's it. That's the maximum that we can build. Yeah,
• 11:24
  but it's like, how can you talk about this a little more?
• 11:27
  I mean, this the private activity bonds mayor kind of mentioned this.
• 11:30
  This wasn't something that the city was as aggressive in, in the past.
• 11:34
  So so what are we doing now and what was the genesis?
• 11:38
  Sure.
• 11:38
  So for 23 years or so, the city did not use its private activity bonds.
• 11:43
  It didn't have a private activity bond program.
• 11:46
  But you mentioned that capital that their in.
• 11:48
  You know, that's that's a lot of money to be.
• 11:49
  Yeah it sure is.
• 11:50
  So that the city realizes around 37.5%
• 11:53
  of that cap, which is roughly about $140 million a year.
• 11:57
  And so by bringing that private activity bond program back in-house,
• 12:01
  the city's able to direct the private activity bonds
• 12:04
  to developments here on Oahu, which is really, really important.
• 12:07
  Yeah.
• 12:08
  But beyond the private activity bond program, we also need to develop
• 12:12
  our own in the independent means of financing these projects.
• 12:16
  That's really essential.
• 12:18
  A key
• 12:19
  part of the plan is reworking city policies
• 12:21
  to make housing development faster, more efficient.
• 12:25
  What barriers specifically are being addressed
• 12:28
  and how do you think that's going to help? Yeah.
• 12:30
  You know, one of the challenges that we have was on the procurement
• 12:33
  side is in the past, we've only been able to issue a request for proposals,
• 12:39
  and it's really challenging
• 12:40
  to issue a request for proposal for a project like an Eveleigh,
• 12:44
  which is so big
• 12:44
  because you just can't get apples to apples comparisons for the most part.
• 12:48
  We recently worked with the governor's office,
• 12:50
  and this is another great example of state city collaboration
• 12:54
  to amend the governor's emergency proclamation
• 12:57
  to allow the city to issue requests for qualifications.
• 13:01
  And that's really unique.
• 13:01
  We've never done that. A city in the past.
• 13:04
  Issuing a request for qualifications allows us to to really negotiate
• 13:09
  development agreements with our development partners
• 13:12
  that make a lot more sense,
• 13:13
  that can be asset specific rather than just general and global.
• 13:17
  So the art I know that there was a press release that went out recently, the RFQ
• 13:21
  that are out now.
• 13:22
  What are those for specifically?
• 13:23
  Yeah.
• 13:23
  So we've identified ten properties within our portfolio, for instance,
• 13:27
  that can accommodate conservatively.
• 13:29
  Will you believe around 1900 units of housing.
• 13:32
  And these are properties that were just in our portfolio.
• 13:35
  They hadn't been used. They were underutilized.
• 13:37
  And so by issuing requests for qualifications, we're able to attract
• 13:41
  development potential development partners to each one of those assets
• 13:44
  and get them into production.
• 13:46
  We recently launched, a request for proposal
• 13:49
  for four different properties in and around Waikiki.
• 13:53
  And we're excited about that.
• 13:55
  We believe they can accommodate around 140 units of housing.
• 13:57
  But again, these are properties that were in our portfolio for quite some time.
• 14:01
  What's the timeline for that?
• 14:02
  Once those requests go out what happens next.
• 14:04
  Yeah.
• 14:04
  So there's a request for proposals that's got that goes out.
• 14:07
  And then we have a pre a pre proposal conference.
• 14:11
  We have a cutoff date for questions from the development partners.
• 14:14
  And then sometime around the end of March,
• 14:17
  there's a final cut off and then we select a development partner.
• 14:20
  And so how far from now when we're sitting down with you today,
• 14:24
  will there be shovels in the ground?
• 14:25
  That's a lot as a question a lot of people ask, right?
• 14:27
  You say you're working at this aggressively, but like,
• 14:29
  how soon will that unit be available for this family that needs it right now?
• 14:33
  Yeah.
• 14:33
  So if you think if you if you look at the overall timeline
• 14:36
  for development, it is quite long in Hawaii.
• 14:38
  And the reason for that is there's lots of steps to go through.
• 14:41
  So the first the first step would be issuing a request
• 14:45
  for proposals so we can start that private public partnership.
• 14:48
  Yeah.
• 14:48
  Then we have to score the proposal.
• 14:50
  So that's 3 or 4 months later.
• 14:52
  And then we select a partner and we enter into a development agreement
• 14:55
  with that partner.
• 14:56
  And that might take 4 to 6 months to complete negotiations
• 15:00
  and get approval from city council.
• 15:02
  And then beyond that, we start the entitlement and the
• 15:04
  approval process, which is really going through the environmental review,
• 15:08
  understanding what we can build on the site, starting the the,
• 15:12
  the construction, permitting and drawings and plans,
• 15:15
  and then financing a project
• 15:17
  and getting it built so it can be 3 to 4 years before projects
• 15:20
  are from the conceptualization until the actual building.
• 15:24
  But is this faster than the way maybe it has been done in years past?
• 15:27
  Yeah.
• 15:28
  One of the biggest issues for so for instance, on the RFQ
• 15:31
  is we shaved probably a year off of,
• 15:35
  the, the proposal process by using an RFQ versus RFP.
• 15:40
  You mentioned
• 15:41
  housing the Department of Land Management, with those services being consolidated
• 15:46
  under this new Department of Housing and Land Management.
• 15:49
  How will the restructuring improve the city's ability to deliver results?
• 15:53
  We talked about units, but you know, that land management part,
• 15:57
  it plays a huge role in making it, like you said, expedited.
• 16:01
  It really does.
• 16:02
  Having 50 people working together to achieve a common goal
• 16:06
  is a whole lot better than one.
• 16:08
  Yeah, but sticking with restructuring when we say Department of Housing,
• 16:13
  you know, previously that was kind of merged with the homelessness response,
• 16:18
  but not so much anymore.
• 16:19
  Really great question Randy.
• 16:21
  The city hasn't had a centralized housing function in over 30 years.
• 16:24
  And when we initially started looking at how to structure a housing department,
• 16:29
  we had to, we had to look across many, many departments because the functions
• 16:34
  were actually spread out amongst various departments.
• 16:37
  They were consolidated quite a bit in the Department of Community Services.
• 16:41
  There was, spread out throughout the Department of Planning and Permitting.
• 16:45
  And one of the early decisions that we made early on in the
• 16:49
  in the reorganization process was bifurcating
• 16:53
  housing functions and housing development functions, because you got professionals
• 16:58
  within that, within that area that are primarily focused on
• 17:02
  on developing housing and all the land use items that come along with it.
• 17:07
  And then separating the Department of Community Services,
• 17:10
  who focuses primarily on housing and supportive services.
• 17:14
  So bifurcating those two functions just made a lot of sense to us
• 17:18
  because they're completely different skill sets supporting the 30
• 17:22
  am I and below family, right.
• 17:23
  Versus folks who are out acquiring land and working with development partners
• 17:27
  to build.
• 17:28
  We can work together and collaborate together to build on
• 17:31
  behalf of the Department of Community Services.
• 17:34
  But it's it seemed
• 17:35
  it was better dividing those skill sets so we could divide effectively.
• 17:38
  Divide and conquer.
• 17:39
  I'm sure that there are still relationships
• 17:42
  that the departments that you do work with in the city, there's there's no silos.
• 17:45
  So do you still work with DCS, DPP and in what way?
• 17:49
  On a daily and hourly basis?
• 17:51
  Yeah, we work very, very closely together.
• 17:53
  And collaborate quite a bit.
• 17:55
  We have a once a month.
• 17:56
  We have an affordable housing working group meeting that brings
• 17:58
  all of those teams together that focus on the wicked problem
• 18:01
  and try to find solutions to current issues.
• 18:04
  But we work hand in hand with the Department of Planning,
• 18:07
  permitting and the Department of Community Services to affect, new development.
• 18:12
  Yeah.
• 18:12
  You know, this specifically, is going to help
• 18:16
  to keep more local families here where they were born and raised.
• 18:20
  How is this plan, the strategic housing plan that you announced last week.
• 18:23
  How is this going to keep those families here?
• 18:25
  We need more housing
• 18:27
  that's affordable to local families so they can continue to stay.
• 18:30
  It's a real shame that the outmigration trend has been
• 18:34
  so heavy over the last couple of years.
• 18:36
  And we need to stop that.
• 18:38
  I mean, the efforts that we make today are really about future generations,
• 18:41
  and keeping folks here, but not only keeping folks here, but,
• 18:44
  providing housing for the folks that have left and want to return.
• 18:47
  Kevin, you talked about your background where you were
• 18:49
  before this, your team of five now hopefully growing.
• 18:53
  And in the next few months.
• 18:55
  Is this role what you expected?
• 18:57
  This is a role of a lifetime.
• 18:58
  But is it what you expect it?
• 19:00
  It's it's everything I expected and more.
• 19:03
  It's, I was in the private sector for nearly
• 19:06
  40 years, and, you know, this is this is my last hurrah.
• 19:10
  I like to tell the mayor before I hang up my cleats.
• 19:13
  And it's really about legacy.
• 19:14
  It's about trying to get something done, trying to solve a wicked problem.
• 19:18
  And trying to make it better for the folks that come behind us.
• 19:21
  The University of Hawaii economic research organization.
• 19:23
  Are you hero, as it's more commonly known as?
• 19:25
  Can you talk about the relationship there? Sure.
• 19:28
  You know, the you hero folks, it's been a tremendous relationship for us,
• 19:32
  really smart, dynamic people that work within that,
• 19:36
  within that group, particularly on the on the housing side.
• 19:39
  We recently worked with you, hero, to launch
• 19:42
  what's referred to as the subsidized Housing Explorer.
• 19:45
  And as far as we know, this was a first time effort to ever understand
• 19:49
  what the actual inventory of affordable housing was across the island.
• 19:53
  And it took about it was about a year, a little over a year process.
• 19:58
  One of the things that we learned was the lack of,
• 20:02
  sufficient and organized
• 20:04
  and reliable data across not only the city, but the state.
• 20:08
  So that that's been very helpful to us, but as a, as an end result of that,
• 20:12
  of that effort,
• 20:14
  we came up with a database
• 20:16
  of roughly 332 properties, over 35,000 units,
• 20:20
  50 different state and federal government subsidies, supporting those units.
• 20:25
  And we were able to break them out by city council district,
• 20:28
  which is really helpful to our city council members
• 20:30
  so they can understand what's what's in their district.
• 20:33
  And now we've got a solid database that we can continue to work with
• 20:36
  to understand where affordable housing is, how it's subsidized,
• 20:40
  and when does that subsidy end?
• 20:42
  When does it roll off?
• 20:43
  When when are we at risk of losing those units potentially
• 20:46
  so that we can make early interventions,
• 20:49
  to ensure that those units stay affordable for perpetuity?
• 20:53
  Hopefully. Which would be the case.
• 20:55
  Another great area that we're working with you hero on is,
• 20:59
  analyzing and reviewing all of our existing housing policies.
• 21:04
  So we've got ordinances and policies and rules
• 21:07
  that have been on our books six, seven, eight, ten years.
• 21:10
  And what we want to do is take a step back and take a top down review
• 21:14
  of all of those programs and ordinances to understand what's working, what's not,
• 21:20
  and how we what changes that we can make to make those, rules and ordinances
• 21:24
  work better for us.
• 21:25
  And so what happens with that relationship now?
• 21:27
  I mean, you came up with this study
• 21:29
  and then do you review every 5 or 7 years or what happens now?
• 21:33
  Well, I think we should be reviewing constantly, to understand what's working.
• 21:37
  You know, we nibble at the edges sometimes with policy, and that's important.
• 21:40
  But doing a comprehensive top down review every couple of years is not not
• 21:44
  such a bad idea to understand what works, what's not, and what needs to be changed.
• 21:49
  And when it does come to federal subsidies,
• 21:52
  when it comes to federal subsidies, is there any fear there?
• 21:55
  I mean, like you said,
• 21:56
  you know, we need to review so that we can make sure
• 21:58
  that we can intervene when we need to.
• 21:59
  But is there a chance that that money will not be coming that well?
• 22:03
  We need to be prepared.
• 22:04
  The largest program that the city currently,
• 22:08
  depends on the federal government for is the section eight housing program.
• 22:12
  And we understand that that program is intact
• 22:16
  and won't be it won't be, impacted.
• 22:19
  But you never know.
• 22:20
  And we always have to be on our toes.
• 22:22
  But it's no secret that we really do have a housing crisis, right?
• 22:27
  That's the terrible word crisis.
• 22:29
  And you are now tasked with helping to solve this.
• 22:33
  What's the most challenging part of this job?
• 22:35
  Oh, you're in the hot seat, and it's.
• 22:37
  You can't build fast enough.
• 22:39
  Quick enough, better enough. Right?
• 22:41
  That's the challenge.
• 22:42
  The other big challenge that we have is we have just such a short amount of time,
• 22:46
  you know, we've got one term left and every day counts.
• 22:49
  You know, we're less than, you know, 47 months left in our in our agenda.
• 22:53
  And there's just so much to do.
• 22:55
  It takes four years to get a housing project out of the ground.
• 22:58
  We got a lot of work to do so that we can break ground
• 23:01
  and be under construction before the end of the administration.
• 23:03
  With all of these units and more.
• 23:06
  That's the most challenging part. There's a lot of pressure.
• 23:08
  But on the flip side, is there anything that has surprised you in a good way?
• 23:13
  Just the level of
• 23:14
  cooperation and the extraordinary, leadership within
• 23:18
  not only the mayor's office, but the folks that we work with within the cabinet.
• 23:22
  Every time I've had to raise my hand and say, I need help, man,
• 23:25
  they're just people, you know, that coming right up behind you to support you.
• 23:29
  It's been just a great thing.
• 23:30
  The cross collaboration that I've experienced within the cabinet
• 23:33
  is absolutely extraordinary, and it's been incredibly helpful
• 23:37
  and will continue to be helpful as we try to solve problems.
• 23:40
  You mentioned the leadership team for you personally.
• 23:43
  Do you have a mentor or maybe someone whose leadership style you try to mimic?
• 23:47
  Boy, I'll tell you, between the mayor, the managing director
• 23:51
  and the deputy managing director, they're three of the hardest working,
• 23:55
  smartest individuals and savviest individuals I've ever worked with.
• 23:59
  And I really I've worked with some really smart people in my career.
• 24:02
  And do you have any mentors?
• 24:04
  Is there anyone that kind of stands out to you?
• 24:06
  It's a good question. Mentor.
• 24:08
  At this age, you.
• 24:09
  Know, you always get to mentors or maybe growing up, maybe growing up.
• 24:12
  Did you have any mentors growing up? We're going to skip that next.
• 24:17
  It's I have a lot of mentors,
• 24:19
  but I you know, I don't like bears talking about it, I guess.
• 24:23
  Well, why did you want to do this?
• 24:24
  I think that the reason I do this every day is it's just a passion.
• 24:27
  It's a passion to try to get something done.
• 24:29
  Working in the private sector, you know, it was all about working for profit.
• 24:33
  And in this instance, it's all about solving problems.
• 24:35
  And it's just it's the thing that motivates me to get me out of bed
• 24:38
  every day.
• 24:39
  There's been a couple times where we've been at grand openings, ribbon
• 24:42
  cutting ceremonies, and,
• 24:43
  you know, the keys have been given to those first residents.
• 24:46
  You know, that kind of stands out in my mind as this is why we do this.
• 24:50
  Are there any moments like that
• 24:51
  that stand out to you, that you kind of fall back on.
• 24:53
  Every single day? And I want to have more moments like that.
• 24:55
  There is nothing more gratifying to see a family get a set of keys and
• 24:59
  move into their first home.
• 25:01
  It's just really an exceptional feeling.
• 25:03
  And and it's almost it's almost a feeling of it's
• 25:07
  kind of it's kind of like being addictive a little bit.
• 25:11
  Yeah.
• 25:11
  I mean, the more that you see it, the more you want to do it.
• 25:14
  And what was that moment like for you?
• 25:16
  Like, you know, were you renting through college
• 25:19
  and then do you remember you're the first property you bought or.
• 25:22
  I grew up in a in a three decker, I had a single mom, two kids.
• 25:26
  And so we were probably, you know, a paycheck away from public housing.
• 25:30
  We really were.
• 25:30
  And so to be able to give back
• 25:32
  at this late stage of my career is really gratifying.
• 25:35
  Well, Kevin, is there anything we missed?
• 25:38
  I don't think so.
• 25:38
  Brandy, you really beat me up here.
• 25:42
  We just came off Super Bowl weekend.
• 25:44
  What is, one dish that you can make if I put you on the spot?
• 25:49
  One dish to make.
• 25:51
  You have to go to a Super Bowl party.
• 25:52
  This is the scenario, Kevin.
• 25:54
  We're just coming off Super Bowl week.
• 25:55
  You have to go to a Super Bowl party.
• 25:57
  You have a few hours
• 25:59
  to get your butt out the door with a dish that you can throw together quickly.
• 26:02
  You know, one of those, like, everyone will like it and it's a safe dish.
• 26:06
  You can bring it to a Super Bowl party.
• 26:08
  Okay, well, thank you for your time.
• 26:11
  You're never invited to our first.
• 26:14
  And next week we'll be
• 26:15
  back with Mayor Rick Blangiardi right here on the One Oahu Podcast.
• 26:18
  Mahalo for listening. And until next time, Aloha.