Matthias Kusch

Office: House District 1

Party: Democrat

Hawaiʻi’s affordability challenges affect nearly every aspect of daily life, from housing and education to healthcare, transportation, and childcare.
What are your personal experiences with the high cost of living in Hawaiʻi?

I moved here in the late 1980's as a stepping stone back to the western Pacific, where I worked for a bit during college. One thing led to another and here I am. Along the way, I have worked multiple jobs since day one, raised 3 daughters and built a life for us in Hilo. Housing has gotten more expensive (even relative to incomes), preschool, healthcare, transportation all of it. Much of it is from a thousand small measures that were well intended to address and issue, but when layered upon each other, they have significantly impacted the opportunities available to young families and they have made it more difficult to make ends meet.

Many local residents leave or are considering leaving Hawaiʻi because they can no longer afford to stay, or because they seek greater economic opportunity, and according to the 2020 Census, approximately 55% of Native Hawaiians now live outside of Hawaiʻi.
With negative net migration continuing to drain Hawaiʻi of its local population, how can we restore optimism and convince local working families and young professionals that they have a viable economic future in the islands?

Reduce housing barriers through reasonable relaxation of building codes, fire codes, land use and planning. Be open to new technologies and industries that are a good fit for Hawaii: Geothermal, drone/aerospace, transportation, agriculture to name a few.

I had three good bills last year that were used as leverage and got killed early, middle and at the very last minutes of conference. A land use bill to put more county control and ease of increased density for our small rural towns, along with more flexibility on zoning. My biodiesel bill which has good paying blue collar jobs and creates agricultural consistency and finally my former sugar cane lands bill which allowed farming on certain OCCL lands that they made impossible. To name some specifically.

Many employers report difficulty finding qualified workers, while many residents struggle to access career pathways that provide long-term financial stability. It is estimated that in the next decade, 170,000 keiki will enter the workforce, but only 100,000 living wage jobs will be available for them.
What are ways the State can improve workforce development efforts and ensure that enough living wage jobs will be available for youth entering the workforce?

See question #2. Investing in our current High School academies by making seamless Community College and UHM/UHH transitions: ready for workforce deployment.

Housing experts recommend that a household spend no more than one-third of its income on housing costs. In its 2025 Employee Affordability Survey, Holomua Collective found that most local working families identify housing as the main driver of Hawaiʻi’s high cost of living. Most local families also said they are spending more than half of household income on housing costs.
What practical and actionable solutions do you have to lower housing costs?

See question #2. Housing will realistically always be a cost challenge, but we can make it much more reasonable than it is now.

Hawai’i’s housing market is impacted and constrained by out-of-state and speculative buyers. A variety of solutions have been proposed to dedicate housing for local working families.
How do you propose we dedicate housing for local working families over out-of-state or speculative buyers?

Yes. I feel like that statement is a little misleading: Hawaii is a good place to land bank Ag land, but not as attractive as a lot of mainland areas for speculation. The real issue is people who have taken advantage of outside (mainland) opportunities to make good incomes, then come with their outsized paychecks and outcompete local paychecks for housing. It's not insidious people looking to harm Hawaii residents, it's just we've boxed ourselves into a series of regulatory and closed minded economic opportunities.

Hawai‘i needs tens of thousands of new homes, and every year we fall further behind, more local families are forced to leave.
What will you do to ensure the State quickly builds more housing for local working families before they are priced out of Hawai‘i?

See answers above.

Nearly one in three Hawaiʻi households experience food insecurity. More than one in five households report skipping meals or going entire days without eating because they cannot afford enough food. With grocery prices 30–40% higher than the continent, many families are struggling to meet their basic needs.
How do you propose we reduce everyday living expenses like groceries?

Increase local agricultural production and processing. Incentivize the consumption of more elemental food groups, disincentivizing shipped in processed foods.

Hawaiʻi families face some of the highest early childcare and education costs in the country, with center-based infant care averaging more than $24,000 annually. These costs often prevent parents from returning to work and pose a significant barrier to economic opportunity for working families.
How can the State make childcare and education costs more affordable?

We've started and need to continue. I had to fight for months to get a DOE preschool open in my district. Every negligible issue became a "no can". It was frustrating and took a lot of energy to get to "can". And we did. But that paradigm needs to shift.

If you could change one aspect of Hawaiʻi's tax system to improve affordability for local working families, what would it be and why?

Conveyance tax reform with dedicated funding for DHHL and a wide variety of rental housing subsidies.

Hawaiʻi ranks 49th overall nationally in America’s Top States for Business 2025. Local sentiment underscores this ranking, with Holomua Collective’s 2025 Employee Affordability Survey finding that only 19% of respondents believe Hawai‘i is a good place to do business.
Why do you believe Hawai‘i is seen as such a difficult place to do business, and how would you improve conditions for local businesses?

It can often take a long time to get to 'yes'. But you usually know from the outset that you'll get to 'yes'. Why not get to 'yes' sooner? Or right away? There are a lot of well-intended but 98% poorly applied laws that hurt business by slowing them down. Lots of people just choose to be grey marketeers because following the rules is byzantine.

In a 2025 survey by Holomua Collective, only 20% of local working residents said that they had confidence in state and local government to do right by the people of Hawaiʻi.
What reforms would you support to improve transparency, accountability, trust, efficiency, and public confidence in state and local government?

Thank you media! Hard to fight perceptions, but there are lots of ways we can be less silo'ed, but it really starts with department heads. Some are fantastic, others not so much. As for reforms, I don't have any ideas off the top of my heads. But I am playing a role connecting County and State to be less silo'ed and more collaborative. It's not a grand plan, but we are moving forward on a variety of issues!

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