Mikey Burke's home was destroyed during the Lahaina fire. She's joined a new effort to create a community land trust to buy properties and keep them in the community.
"If we have enough of that happening, the village we grew up in is not going to be the village that we want to raise our kids in," Burke says."This community is so important to who we are."West Maui is a center of the tourism industry, raising concerns in the community that developers will buy properties destroyed in the fire as they come up for sale.Land trusts purchase properties and then sell or rent the houses.
Their house was destroyed. The burned debris is still awaiting removal, like hundreds of other properties in Lahaina. But Burke's family is already navigating the rebuilding process. Burke says they received a dollar estimate for what their insurance company will pay them, but they're not sure if it will be enough to cover the cost of rebuilding, with contractors in such high demand.
"People talk about the land trust as a way to sell in, instead of selling out," Ness says."If you have to sell – not your fault, no judgment. How can we make sure you have what you need and the land stays in the highest and best interest of the community?"