In The Disaster Economy, a new series in partnership with Honolulu Civil Beat, Grist explores the exploitative disaster recovery industry. In this story, Anita Hofschneider writes about Mikey Burke, a Native Hawaiian woman who lost her Lāhainā home in the 2023 wildfires. On Maui, a third of residents who were homeowners before the fires no longer own their homes. In mortgage limbo, Burke continues to fight to keep her family in Hawaiʻi despite the high costs of rebuilding and the greedy investors who are eager to buy up land.
Burke began to make a list: Call her mortgage company. Cancel her internet and cable. Call her insurance company. Cancel her water and electric services. Apply for disaster assistance. In two weeks, their mortgage bill would be due, but they also needed to find new housing and pay rent there, too.
“You qualify to be on forbearance for up to 12 months,” Burke recalls a customer service representative for her mortgage servicer told her in an initial call.
“What happens after that?” she asked. She couldn’t get a straight answer.
“That scared the crap out of me because I didn’t know if after 12 months I was going to have to pay that 12 months back in full, or if they were going to put me on a payment plan, or if they were going to just tack it on to the back of my loan,” she said. Two years later, she still doesn’t know what the answer is — and has been trying to save money in case she’s required to pay everything upfront. As of July of this year, she owes $71,000.
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