Hawaii County has been sending taxpayer money to a tiny women’s shelter in Hilo even though the county’s fire bureau has no record of ever inspecting the building and residents say the bedrooms do not have code-required escape openings. The shelter, called Hale Maluhia, is run by HOPE Services Hawaiʻi and serves women in crisis. Residents and a former resident with an engineering background say the only ways out of the sleeping rooms are glass louver (jalousie) windows and a single steel screen door. Photographs shown to reporters, residents say, depict window sills higher than the 44-inch maximum allowed for emergency egress.
Despite those complaints, county and state dollars have continued to roll in. HOPE Services Hawaiʻi was awarded roughly $575,000 from Hawaiʻi County’s Housing and Homelessness Fund in 2025 and received another $362,000 from the state Office of Housing and Homelessness, with the agency also named the largest recipient in the most recent round at about $1.5 million. The homelessness fund remains authorized through 2027, which keeps multi-year support on the table for HOPE. These allocations, along with the safety questions, were first spotlighted by reporting from All Hawaii News.
“None of the seven units have an operable window,” resident Kiona Boyd told reporters, saying the jalousie blades require major force to remove and that smoke alarms have at times malfunctioned, according to coverage of her remarks. County building code requires emergency escape and rescue openings with a maximum finished sill height of 44 inches, but photographs provided to reporters show sills at about 52 inches, the story says. The building does have smoke alarms and fire extinguishers, but it does not have a sprinkler system or emergency lighting, and bedrooms appear to exit only through jalousies and a single steel screen door, residents and documents say, as reported by WKYC/Associated Press.
How the Shelter Operates
HOPE Services Hawaiʻi lists Hale Maluhia as a short-term women’s emergency shelter at 110 Ululani Street in Hilo. The nonprofit operates multiple shelters on the Big Island and describes HOPE as an affiliate of the Roman Catholic Diocese. The facility began taking residents in April 2020 as part of the state’s “Ohana Zones” and was listed in a statewide homelessness report as a site opened during the pandemic response. HOPE’s site lists an after-hours emergency line and emphasizes rapid housing pathways for residents, while county records show the property is leased from St. Joseph Parish, as detailed by HOPE Services Hawaiʻi and the Hawaii Interagency Council on Homelessness.
County Response and Audit
The Hawaii County Fire Prevention Bureau says it has no record of ever inspecting Hale Maluhia. A county spokesperson told reporters that on the Big Island, fire inspections are typically triggered only after direct complaints. In the wake of the funding decisions, the County Council’s Governmental Operations and External Affairs Committee asked the county auditor for a performance audit of the homelessness fund, and auditors were reported to expect results toward the end of the year. County funding for the homelessness program is authorized through 2027, and elected officials narrowly approved the most recent awards on a 5-4 vote, according to WKYC/Associated Press.
What the Code Requires
Under standard residential building codes, emergency escape and rescue openings in sleeping rooms must provide a clear opening large enough for rescue, and the bottom of that opening must sit no more than 44 inches above the finished floor. Many local jurisdictions adopt those rules from the International Residential Code. When windows are blocked, difficult to operate, or placed well above that sill height, firefighters and residents can be left without a quick way out during a fire. Those technical requirements and how they are measured for egress openings are summarized by local building departments and code guides, including Portland BDS.
HOPE Services says staff review emergency procedures with residents and that the sites it operates provide safety training. Advocates and one resident argue the county should verify building code compliance before awarding large, multi-year grants. The dispute has prompted calls for closer oversight of the homelessness fund and for repairs or retrofits that would add compliant escape routes to sleeping rooms, according to reporting compiled by All Hawaii News.
