How Lending Practices Restrict Hawaiian Homesteaders’ Borrowing Power - Honolulu Civil Beat
How Lending Practices Restrict Hawaiian Homesteaders’ Borrowing Power
Native Hawaiians cannot take out second mortgages or home equity lines of credit on their homesteads — but not everyone understood that was part of the deal.
Reading time: 13 minutes.
For the few Native Hawaiians who can secure a residential lot on Hawaiian Home Lands, the ground holds the potential to fulfill a century-old promise.
The advantages of homeownership, a maintainable property to pass down to children, the restoration of economic self-sufficiency among Native Hawaiians — these were all commitments made by the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, passed by Congress in 1920.