The nation's largest apartment landlord is facing a civil rights complaint in Hawaiʻi after testers say leasing agents at three of its properties turned away renters using Section 8 housing vouchers. The complaint, filed with the Hawaiʻi Civil Rights Commission, accuses Greystar Worldwide of violating state laws that bar landlords from discriminating against tenants who rely on housing assistance programs.
The filing lists five alleged violations at three of Greystar's six Hawaiʻi properties, spanning Oʻahu and Maui, according to Honolulu Civil Beat. At The Element, a 318-unit complex in ʻEwa Beach, a Greystar leasing agent told a tester on January 23 that a voucher would need to cover the full rent plus utilities, and separately said the tester could not combine income and a voucher to meet an income requirement. Housing Rights Initiative testers also recorded two alleged violations at Kapolei Lofts, a 499-unit property, while Kaulana Mahina, a 324-unit complex in Wailuku, was also named in the complaint.
Housing Rights Initiative began investigating Greystar in October 2025, sending testers to pose as prospective renters and, in at least one instance, employing a caller to pose as someone eligible for Section 8. The group focused its probe on Greystar properties in Hawaiʻi, New Jersey, California, Maryland, Michigan and Virginia. Nationally, the group and the law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll announced 114 alleged violations across six states and Washington, D.C., which the Los Angeles Times reported is the largest number of voucher discrimination violations the organization has ever documented against a single corporate landlord.
What Greystar Agents Allegedly Told Testers
Greystar agents told testers that their Section 8 vouchers would not work, per the complaint details relayed by Civil Beat. In some cases, a leasing agent said market-rate units had been denied to voucher holders, while affordable units that would qualify for vouchers carried a waiting list of more than a year. Under a housing voucher, the program covers the remaining rent after a tenant's contribution, and voucher programs typically require tenants to pay around 30 percent of their income toward rent — with Hawaiʻi law counting the voucher itself toward income, according to the same report.
Nationwide, nearly half of the 114 complaints against Greystar — 53 violations — occurred in California, including 15 in Los Angeles and six in Pasadena, the Los Angeles Times found. Greystar Worldwide manages or owns more than 1.1 million residential rental units across the country, making it the largest apartment manager and corporate landlord in the nation, according to Multifamily Dive.
Hawaiʻi's Voucher Protection Law and Its Limits
Hawaiʻi's Act 310 took effect in 2023 and prohibits landlords from refusing to rent to tenants with vouchers, setting different terms for voucher holders, or advertising that a property does not accept vouchers. The law also bars private apartment complexes from limiting voucher tenants to certain apartments. An academic study by the ifo Institute found that explicit voucher discrimination in Hawaiʻi rental listings dropped 67 percent after Act 310 took effect, though researchers cautioned the law cannot catch discrimination that happens later, off the page, during phone calls or in-person conversations with leasing agents — exactly the kind of interaction described in the Greystar complaint.
Brian Corman, an attorney involved in the case, said the allegations were not an isolated incident involving a single applicant. He said Greystar could have prevented the alleged violations from continuing, noting that Housing Rights Initiative alerted the company that fair housing law violations were occurring at its properties, yet the company continued to regularly have alleged fair housing violations after being alerted, per Civil Beat's reporting.
Why the Timeline Matters for Voucher Holders
Voucher holders typically have just 60 days after receiving a voucher to find and secure an apartment, a tight window in a state where the wait to even receive a voucher is already brutal. According to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development data compiled by USAFacts, subsidized housing applicants in Hawaiʻi waited an average of 28 months for housing in 2025, up from 22 months the year before. When the City and County of Honolulu Department of Community Services opened its own Section 8 waitlist in 2025, 3,000 applicants were selected by lottery, and officials projected the list would stay closed for roughly three years.
Alicia Pitts said voucher holders still often find it very difficult to find and secure housing even once they clear that waitlist. She said failing to secure a lease and pass inspections before a voucher expires can lead to loss of stable housing and houselessness. Landlords sometimes use credit scores or excessive income-to-rent requirements to reject voucher holders without ever explicitly mentioning the voucher itself, according to the complaint details cited by Civil Beat.
Penalties and the State's Enforcement Record
Under state rules implementing Act 310, first-time housing discrimination offenses can warrant a $2,000 penalty, while subsequent violations can earn fines of up to $2,500, according to the Hawaiʻi Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. The Hawaiʻi Civil Rights Commission may conduct interviews, records reviews and inspections after receiving a complaint and giving the target a chance to respond, and cases can ultimately be resolved through penalties or settlement. The commission investigated 50 housing discrimination cases in 2025 and assessed fines in some of them.
Marcus Kawatachi said commission rules prevent him from commenting on or confirming the Greystar case specifically. Greystar did not respond to Civil Beat's requests for comment on the Hawaiʻi allegations, though the company told The New York Times, as cited in the same report, that its employees are trained and expected to comply with applicable laws and that it remains committed to fair housing practices.
A Company Already Under Scrutiny in Hawaiʻi
This is not Greystar's first brush with controversy in the islands. In December, Greystar faced resident protests and a federal court lawsuit over sudden utility bill spikes at its Kapilina Beach Homes property in ʻEwa Beach, where tenants reported monthly electric charges jumping from around $178 to nearly $800. The company also agreed in November 2025 to pay $7 million to settle antitrust claims with nine state attorneys general and entered a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice over its use of nonpublic competitor data in RealPage algorithmic rent-setting software, according to AP News.
The Housing Rights Initiative complaint against Greystar in Hawaiʻi remains an allegation subject to state investigation and due process, with no findings yet issued by the Hawaiʻi Civil Rights Commission. For the voucher holders caught in the middle, the stakes are immediate — a 60-day clock, a years-long wait already behind them, and, according to the complaint, a leasing office that allegedly told them their voucher simply would not work.
