Food and housing costs are squeezing Hawaii families hard, and the people helping them say the need is now worse than it was during the pandemic.

• The Hawaii Food Bank is handing out more than twice as much food as before the pandemic, and much of it goes to working families.
• One in three people in Hawaii doesn't have enough food, and half of them never ask for help because they feel ashamed.
• Grocery spending jumped sharply at the start of 2025 and never came back down, pushed up by tariffs, bird flu, and now higher oil prices from the Iran conflict.
• Housing stays out of reach because Hawaii builds about 3,000 homes a year against a shortage of 150,000 on Oahu, with no political appetite to fix it.
• Tourism, the state's main source of outside income, is still below its pre-pandemic path, with far fewer Japanese visitors and hurricane cancellations adding to the drop.

Outlook: Cuts to food stamps and Medicaid in January plus a weak winter travel season point to more strain, with a Honolulu ballot measure proposing a small slice of existing property tax to fund local food security.