Twenty Tiny Homes in a Church Car Park: Hawaii Tells a Congregation to Return Them or Pay $20,000 Each

• Twenty state-owned tiny homes were installed in the parking lot of Hawaii Cedar Church, a Korean congregation in Kalihi, Honolulu, in August 2024.
• The state bought the units from HomeAid Hawaiʻi at $16,000 each; they house homeless seniors and families.
• The state’s homelessness office has demanded that the church return the units or buy them for $20,000 each.
• There was no written agreement between the state and the church.

A Honolulu church that let the state place tiny homes for homeless people on its land now faces a bill for them. Honolulu Civil Beat reported that Hawaii’s housing and homelessness office has demanded that Hawaii Cedar Church return the units or buy them.

The church, a Korean congregation in Kalihi, has 20 state-owned tiny housing units in its parking lot. The state bought them from HomeAid Hawaiʻi at $16,000 each, their production cost, and they were installed in August 2024 under Governor Josh Green’s kauhale initiative. They house homeless kūpuna, or elders, and families.

The installation was approved by former homelessness coordinator John Mizuno, who stepped down in February 2025. His successor, Jun Yang, wrote to the pastor, the Rev Duk Whan Kim, demanding that the church either return the units or buy them for $20,000 each, and set a deadline of May 27, 2025, after which the state would remove its property. There was no written agreement between the state and the church. Kim believed there had been a “mutual understanding” about the units. Yang said the state was “taking steps to ensure that state property is safeguarded”. Church attorney Ernie Martin was working to resolve the dispute, and at the time of the report the units remained in place and occupied.

The case shows how a generous arrangement can turn into a property dispute when nothing is written down. The church provided the land; the state provided the buildings; neither side recorded who owned what, or on what terms.

Jamaican churches are often asked to host facilities on their land, from temporary housing after a hurricane to clinics and water tanks. Whenever another body places structures on church property, the terms should be written down: who owns the structures, who maintains them, who can remove them and what happens when leadership changes. A short written agreement protects both the congregation and the people being housed.