U‘i Kahue-Cabanting returned to the Royal Lahaina Resort last week wheeling an empty wagon cart.

“They still haven’t told me why I’ve been locked out, why I’m being kicked out,” U‘i told the hotel staff. “But I’m here to collect my things.”

A hotel worker led U‘i into her former hotel room and unlocked the door. U‘i cleared the room of her clothes, toiletries, snacks and supplies for Maui Grown 808, the native plant and cultural arts company she operates with her business partner Mario Siatris. It was too much to cart down the elevator in her wagon, so a bell hop helped her move her things out of the hotel and into her van.

U‘i had lived since April at the Royal Lahaina Resort, one of several hotels still providing emergency shelter to hundreds of survivors of the Aug. 8 fires. But last month, she got a text message from a Red Cross worker while on a business trip in Oregon saying she had to vacate.

“Upon your return, you will find your hotel room locked,” the text message said. “You will need to meet with hotel security to gain access.”

U‘i said she’d told the Red Cross that she’d be traveling for work before she left on the trip and arranged to conduct the agency’s mandatory check-ins remotely by phone during the week she was gone.

Displaced Lahaina wildfire survivors housed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s temporary sheltering program are required to check in twice a week with the Red Cross, which is managing the program. People housed by the hotel program are also expected to proactively document their own attempts to find stable housing. 

Non-compliance with the rules is grounds for being kicked out. But U‘i said she followed the rules diligently.

FEMA spokeswoman Jenny Campora referred questions to the Red Cross. Red Cross spokeswoman Mary Simkins declined to comment specifically on U‘i’s case.

Before she left the resort after picking up her belongings Wednesday, U‘i talked to a Red Cross worker in the lobby. She explained her situation and asked for clarity on why she was abruptly booted from the emergency housing program.

The Red Cross worker couldn’t give U‘i a clear reason why she’d been locked out of her hotel room. Neither could a FEMA worker whom the Red Cross suggested she reach out to for answers.

“I’m beyond frustrated and angry already,” U‘i later explained through tears. “I’m just really disappointed. It feels like they intended to do this to me when I was out of town. I would feel differently if they had given me some days notice but it was like — bam! — you’re out.”

If she weren’t so busy running her business, U‘i said she’d be devastated about how things ended with the emergency shelter program. Last week she and Mario took on 18 shifts teaching coconut weaving at workshops and demonstrations held at hotels, botanical gardens, parks and festivals across Maui. Her work is a welcome distraction from the low points in her personal wildfire recovery.

The demand for Maui Grown 808’s cultural workshops exceeds what Mario and U‘i can offer with their limited staff. They’re always looking to train more people to weave coconut fronds and help them teach, but the island’s labor pool is limited and the job market is competitive.

Still, Mario and U‘i rarely turn down opportunities to perpetuate this disappearing cultural art. They work long days foraging and prepping plant material, weaving bowls or hats for special orders and teaching classes.

“I didn’t realize how profound this work is until we were doing this one workshop where we had these ladies from Tonga and they were teasing each other — very competitive with each other — while making their coconut hats,” U‘i shared with a student group at Maui Nui Botanical Gardens on Saturday. “But by the end of the session they were in tears.”

“They hadn’t done something like this in 40 years since they were last in the village,” she continued. “And so I realized that sharing this cultural art with people from all over the Pacific who are part of the diaspora, living on the mainland or wherever they are, that this is what our kahea and our kuleana is, our calling and our responsibility.”

U‘i has friends and family she can live with temporarily. But she no longer has a home of her own. The belongings she retrieved from the hotel on Wednesday are still stowed in her car because she doesn’t have anywhere else to put them.

She spent the first four nights after being ousted from the resort couch-surfing with her daughter and grandchildren. But she had to move on because her daughter’s leased Kihei apartment is part of a subsidized workforce housing development with strict rules about overnight guests.

Now she’s staying with her business partner Mario, who has a government-subsidized room for wildfire survivors at the Aston Kaanapali Shores, where he’s worked as the chief landscaper for 25 years.

Last week Mario received a notice from the Red Cross that he must be out of his unit by Monday, which is when FEMA’s emergency housing program is now set to end. So the partners are plotting where to go next.

Both U‘i and Mario have declined assistance from FEMA’s direct-lease housing program, which provides qualified wildfire survivors with a long-term lease to a home or apartment instead of pricey rooms at hotels. These units are being leased for fire survivors who have nowhere else to go in part due to the island’s housing crisis.

U‘i and Mario are making their own plans, however. They don’t want to continue to rely on FEMA assistance as they rebuild their lives. And they want more autonomy.

They also want to return to living on Mario’s lot as soon as they can, even if that looks like glorified camping. So they’ve ordered a custom 26-foot trailer from a camping outfitter in Oregon.

The business partners plan to live in the rig, which can sleep up to five people, for the next year or two. And they aim to park it on Mario’s fire-scorched property in the heart of Lahaina where his house stood before the fire obliterated it.

Due to transpacific shipping logistics, the trailer’s estimated arrival date has been pushed back several times, most recently to the end of July. Now the partners must quickly figure out where they’ll live during the six-week gap between Monday, when FEMA stops reimbursing the state for emergency hotel housing for survivors, and the trailer’s landing at the Port of Kahului during the week of July 22.

Even when the FEMA program ends, however, the owner of the condo unit where Mario’s been living for the last nine months has assured him he can stay for as long as he needs without charge. This offer has been extended to U‘i, too. So U‘i and Mario are following up with the owner to see if they can stay in place until their trailer arrives.

But they’re still working on a Plan B in case they have to vacate the condo next week.

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