The trailer that Mario Siatris and U‘i Kahue-Cabanting have been plotting for months to purchase is expected to arrive on Maui from a camping outfitter in Oregon in mid-March. 

By spring, the business partners hope to be living in the new 26-foot trailer, which to them is a more self-sufficient housing option than the hotel room and resort condo where they’ve been staying on the dime of the federal government since the chaotic first weeks after the Lahaina fire turned their lives upside down. 

They have no illusions that they’ll be able to park the trailer on Mario’s fire-ravaged property on Mela Street any time soon. The government won’t allow that to happen until the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers clears Mario’s lot of toxic debris. They’ll also need to wait for government workers to repair Lahaina town’s sewer and water drinking systems. 

There’s no official timeline for either of these critical steps to come to completion. So in the meantime, Mario and U‘i plan to park the trailer that will become their home at various West Maui beach parks. They don’t know whether this will be OK with local authorities, so they plan to park in one place no more than a few nights in a row.

The trailer takes up about three parking spaces.

“Eventually you’ve got to get out of the hotel room,” says U‘i, who since October has examined specs for hundreds of trailers of varying size and layout. “And as much as sometimes it’s fun and everybody’s trying to cater to you, living in a hotel room really starts getting to you. Mario especially is beyond ready to get out. He’s been ready for a while.”

With the discount they got from the Oregon RV retailer due to their status as Lahaina wildfire victims, the trailer cost $36,500. That figure includes a Hawaii vehicle registration, but not freight costs for overseas shipping. U‘i estimates the bill from Matson will tack on another $9,000.

Neither Mario nor U‘i own the trailer, however. To comply with the loss-of-use coverage rules on Mario’s homeowner’s insurance, he has to rent it from a third party. So U‘i’s husband Ronald has stepped up to buy the trailer as part of a work-around to comply with the insurance policy, which covers up to roughly $100,000 for rental housing and other reasonable living expenses while Mario is waiting for his home to be rebuilt. 

“I don’t want to be caught scamming,” Mario says. “But this is not a scam. We talked to insurance about it. We’re always talking with the insurance to make sure, double checking and triple checking.” 

Mario plans to lease the trailer from Ron for roughly $1,600 a month. These payments fall far short of the going rate for a two-bedroom apartment in the Lahaina area. Mario says he knows someone who’s renting their two-bedroom unit to fire survivors through FEMA’s direct-lease housing program for $14,000 a month. 

“With rates like that, the insurance money isn’t going to last too long,” Mario says.

People like Mario with home insurance must use up all of their coverage before they can become eligible for long-term housing through FEMA’s direct-lease program. But Mario says he doesn’t want to rely on FEMA any longer.

“It’s chaos,” he says. “I just want to get back to the land, back home.”

There are other details to work out. Mario is concerned about theft during the long hours when the trailer is left unattended while he and U‘i are at work. U‘i is worried about where they’ll flush their black water.  

“We know we’re taking a risk,” U‘i says. “Unless it’s sponsored by the County of Maui, everything gets shot down. But if the county says, ‘you can’t do this,’ I’ll be the first to say, ‘why not?’ This is our creative solution to get out of the hotels, get away from the chaos of FEMA, use the homeowner’s insurance and live in a trailer that is totally self-contained — we’re not using their water, we’re not creating rubbish — until Mario can rebuild.” 

“I’m sure the government has every excuse in the world,” she says, “but Mario wants to survive and I’m going to push to make it happen.”

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by grants from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.