Chief Housing Officer for the Governor’s office, Nani Medeiros, 2nd from right.
Born and raised in Hawaiʻi, Nani Medeiros has been a public servant for nearly 17 years with a passion for Hawaiʻi’s people and culture. In particular, she has worked hard on Hawaiʻi’s housing and homelessness crisis for most of her career, and she continues to address the crisis today in her role as the Chief Housing Officer for the Governor. Now, with the backing of an Emergency Proclamation (EP) for Housing, she is positioned to meaningfully move the needle for the state in tackling the statewide housing crisis.
Issued on July 17, 2023, the EP relating to Housing is intended to accelerate relief from the statewide housing crisis by suspending specific provisions and addressing sticking points in the affordable housing approval process. The EP was developed after countless hours of speaking with hundreds of stakeholders statewide to identify redundancies and bottlenecks within the current process, while working to keep safeguards in place to avoid compromising safety, as well as environmental and archeological concerns.
“Given our severe shortage of housing, Hawaiʻi has become one of the most expensive and competitive housing markets in the world,” said Governor Green. “The EP was necessary to address this crisis, which has impacted homelessness and our people migrating to the mainland, which ultimately threatens our families and culture.”
“The EP establishes a working group to improve coordination of state and county agencies, and to ensure housing projects keep on schedule by providing flexibility to direct resources to our agencies,” said Medeiros. “While it streamlines processes for housing development, it also ensures respect for our iwi kūpuna and our environment, which is of the utmost importance to me as a Native Hawaiian and someone born and raised in Hawai‘i.”
Medeiros was formerly the executive director of HomeAid Hawai‘i, policy and public affairs director for the Hawaiʻi Primary Care Association, the deputy policy advisor for former Governor Linda Lingle, vice chair on the Hawaiʻi Public Housing Authority’s board of directors, and has also served on the board of directors for the Institute for Human Services.
“Nani and her team have been working tirelessly to provide more affordable housing options across the state, and for that, I commend them,” said Governor Green. “We must coordinate and modernize processes across the various agencies in order to provide housing for our communities. This work is long overdue, and I am excited to see the start of this collaboration between state and counties to create more affordable housing for our people.”