Honolulu Star-Advertiser: Young professionals express concerns with state legislators
January 19, 2026
By Jaylynn Sasano
Sixty young professionals like Jordan Odo got to meet nine young state legislators and City Council members Wednesday night to lobby for issues they believe in, especially the need to make Hawaii more affordable.
“Our young people are the economic drivers of today and tomorrow and if they are not able to live here because it’s so expensive, they’re going to be moving away,” said Odo, 39, who helped organize the event for the Chamber of Commerce Hawaii.
Odo owns a house in Kaimuki but worries about others for whom buying a home in Hawaii seems impossible.
Council member Tyler Dos Santos-Tam, 38, hears similar concerns all the time, including at Wednesday night’s mixer inside the Currents restaurant at Central Pacific Bank’s King Street location.
“I think there’s a lot of frustration, a lot of fear, about whether folks can afford to stay in Hawaii,” Santos-Tam said.
The Chamber of Commerce timed the event ahead of the opening of Wednesday’s legislative session to encourage more engagement between voters and their representatives.
Santos-Tam, who represents downtown, sees luxury high-rise condominiums going up in urban Honolulu, but believes young people on limited incomes need more affordable small- and medium-sized condos they can buy for their first homes.
“That’s the kind of place that we need to be creating more of, so that people in their 20s and 30s who have a job or internship can get a start in building a life here in Hawaii,” Santos-Tam said.
Santos-Tam also has heard from people in their 20s and 30s about their concerns over reviving downtown Honolulu — especially after the last major retailer, Walmart, closed in 2023. Its closure created a retail desert in the bustling area.
Sen. Troy Hashimoto, 38, also heard challenges Wednesday about the cost of living, in addition to concerns over the lack of affordable housing.
“That’s why we’re really trying to start more financial literacy while students are young,” Hashimoto said.
Two bills introduced in the 2025 legislative session — Senate Bill 91 and its House companion bill, House Bill 559 — stalled last year, but automatically carried over into this session.
They would require the state Department of Education “to include the teaching of financial literacy … for each student” beginning with the 2027-2028 school year.
Hashimoto was one of the senators who introduced SB 91.
Rep. Adrian Tam, 33, attended Wednesday mixer to hear more about the concerns of young working professionals in order to better help them.
Tam said the cost of child care, for example, should be a “universal concern for everyone.”
With the cost of child care rising, Tam believes young residents who want to start families while maintaining their careers end up leaving Hawaii for more affordable states, further depleting the workforce.
“And if you deplete the workforce, what happens?” Tam said. “You will see costs increase and services decrease.”
Odo agrees with Tam and wants more people to feel comfortable speaking to legislators and Council members about their concerns and ideas for fixing them.
“Often the loudest people in the room are the ones being heard and those are typically special interests,” Odo said, “But to have everyday, regular, ordinary people speaking up, I think that’s very powerful. But we often don’t do that.”
Odo wants more young elected officials to meet with young professionals to team up on finding solutions.
“We hope that by seeing our legislators as human beings, that people will be more inclined to collaborate and also to speak up when they support something or they don’t support something,” Odo said.