State lawmakers last week toured a number of low-income and public housing projects and came to a woefully obvious conclusion about affordable housing in Hawai'i: The needs are great and resources are few.

Anyone looking for affordable housing, from entry-level renters to first-time home buyers to folks looking to upgrade, knows painfully well how tight the housing market is these days.

So, how can we solve the problem? Who is stepping up to the plate to ensure that Hawai'i will remain a place where folks born and raised here can afford decent housing?

There are well-meaning efforts under way in several areas, but no coherent or unified strategy to deal with the problem that has plagued the Islands for decades. Instead, we have a hodgepodge of plans and sometimes conflicting efforts by the state, the counties, the federal government and private nonprofit and for-profit agencies.

And sometimes the best intentions are sabotaged by competing interests. In a hot real estate market, for example, the natural focus for developers is on maximizing profits, not building affordable inventory.

The sum of these efforts represents some progress, but clearly much more must be done.

TIME FOR ACTION

It's time for clearly coordinated and sensible cooperation between government and the private sector, combined with more resources committed to dealing with the lack of affordable housing.

The Legislature's answer last session was to pass an "omnibus" housing bill (see box at right) that was supposed to take a global look at the housing situation, ranging from homeless to the shortage of affordable rental housing to the problem of the market outstripping family incomes.

That bill was in response to the findings of an affordable housing task force appointed in 2004, which came up with a report in January 2005. The Legislature's response to the task force, among other things, was to — you guessed it — call for the formation of another task force that will report back in 2006.

Our housing shortage is in danger of being studied to death.

While innovative solutions can benefit from further study, the extent of the problem is well-established.

"In short, affordable rental housing in Hawai'i is in short supply or nonexistent," the bill says. "Even moderate-income families are priced out of the housing market."

The bill points to a need for some 28,000 housing units for families earning between 50 to 80 percent of median family income, which is around $76,000 a year for a family of four, according to the Census.

In addition, there are thousands of homeless or "hidden homeless" who want to rent but simply can't find anything affordable.

While the Legislature took some action (ignoring, however, the Lingle administration's call for set-aside of state-owned lands for affordable housing development), the underlying problem of divided and shared responsibilities remains.

DOUBLE APPROACH

Lawmakers sought to address this issue by rendering asunder what several years ago had been brought under one roof. They split the state's Housing and Community Development Corp. into two parts: One would focus on managing state housing, the other on financing and developing affordable housing.

That's a sensible approach, particularly since the City and County of Ho-nolulu has moved out of the housing business. Under previous mayor Jeremy Harris, the city concluded that it was best to leave to the state the business of promoting, developing and managing public housing.

But not entirely. For instance, it keeps on the books a requirement that developers set aside 30 percent of their projects to be sold at below-market prices for those who simply cannot afford market-priced housing.

It's a great concept. But it hasn't really worked.

HOUSES SET ASIDE

For years, while 30 percent of the stock had been set aside, the requirement that those units be sold to qualified families who cannot afford market-priced housing has been waived.

Developers argued that there was little demand from this section of the market and that the time and expense of qualifying buyers in this category was an unfair burden. So the city imposed a moratorium on the qualification requirement.

That doesn't mean developers did not continue to sell a chunk of their product at below-market prices. It just means that they sold it to whoever came through the door.

And while it's true that those buyers theoretically faced restrictions such as shared appreciation and buy-back provisions, it seems easy enough to get around those rules or simply wait them out.

That moratorium expired last month, but the City Council is — astoundingly — moving to reinstate it. If that's not enough, the council heard proposals to lift or ease the buy-back and shared appreciation requirements.

None of this makes sense.

It's hard to believe that, in today's overheated market, there is still not enough demand.

And if the requirement to set aside a percentage of housing for those whose incomes price them out of the market is too onerous for developers, then other sensible solutions should be worked out. Dropping the requirement should be a non-starter.

Finally, shared appreciation and buy-back requirements should be rigorously enforced to protect and preserve what little affordable housing stock we have.

MAKE IT WORK

In short, rather than waiving the lower-income requirement, the city must find a way to make it work efficiently for both buyers and developers. Prospective buyers (and even renters) should be given first-class help in getting through the qualification hoops.

An obvious start would be to turn to the new state agency charged with developing and encouraging affordable housing. There is no need for the city to duplicate this effort.

What's needed is a one-stop shop where buyers or renters of below-market homes can get the technical and financial help they need to navigate the system. There are scores of creative financing options available.

If our elected leaders on the state and city levels are indeed interested in getting families into decent, affordable housing, then conflicting jurisdictions and conflicting responsibilities must be thrown out the window. It's time to work smart, and work together.

ABSURD TAX HIKE

Finally, the Legislature must step in and fix a bit of sleight-of-hand that occurred in the last session.

Lawmakers approved an increase in the conveyance tax for property sales and long-term leases over $600,000 to generate money for a Legacy Lands program. About a third went to pump up the rental housing trust fund and other portions went to buy "legacy" lands or to support the Natural Area Reserve Fund.

There is some philosophical sense to using profits from high-end home sales to protect land from development and support affordable housing.

But more than a third of the tax increase is designed to go straight to the state's general fund.

That's absurd. Directing the money to the general fund amounts to a back-room tax hike.

When they reconvene in January, lawmakers should revise the conveyance tax law to ensure that every dollar collected goes either to land preservation or affordable housing promotion.

That, along with eliminating jurisdictional and bureaucratic roadblocks, will get us on the road to finally doing something about one of our biggest sociological problems: the lack of housing our people can afford.