House panel advances bill to expand pre-eviction mediation while members and landlords raise timeline concerns

The House Committee on Finance advanced Senate Bill 825 SD2 HD2 on a recommendation to pass after extended testimony over program timelines, funding and how mediation will work in practice.

Supporters, including the Judiciary’s Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution and the Mediation Center of the Pacific, told the committee that pre-eviction mediation reduces evictions and can lower downstream costs to homeless services. Jeff Crabtree of the Judiciary said “the evidence is really clear that pre eviction mediation works.” Tracy Wilkin, executive director of the Mediation Center of the Pacific, said the center supports the bill and the requested annual funding of $1,250,000 to support statewide mediation services.

The bill would provide funding to expand pre-eviction mediation services statewide and establish timelines and fees tied to mediation referrals. Wilkin testified the $1,250,000 figure is estimated to support the program statewide, and the Mediation Center expects to participate in administering cases.

Why it matters: The proposal would formalize a mediation pathway for many residential eviction cases across Hawaii, potentially reducing the number of cases that proceed to court and lowering the use of homeless-services resources that follow evictions.

Committee members pressed the Judiciary and mediation providers on operational details. Committee questions focused on: how many mediations are currently being handled statewide, whether the cited case-counts are per year or multi-year totals, and whether the program’s timelines would delay landlords’ ability to recover rent that they rely on for mortgages and other expenses. Crabtree said the Judiciary does not have the requested case-counts at the hearing but offered to provide them from annual reports. He noted the program focuses primarily on rent-related evictions.

Realtors’ representatives voiced concerns about the bill’s timelines. Cassandra Shriver, chair of the Hawaii Realtors government affairs committee, described a typical landlord timeline: rent due on the first, a brief grace period, then a five-day notice to pay or quit. Shriver said the mediation timelines in the bill could shift the soonest date a landlord could file for eviction from roughly day 12 to day 15 or later, and that scheduling mediation within 30 days could push resolution well into the following month. She warned that for small “mom-and-pop” landlords who rely on rent to pay mortgages, that delay “could really delay and affect” their finances. Shriver said mediation is valuable but said the statutory timelines could unintentionally lengthen the eviction process for landlords.

Judiciary and mediation witnesses acknowledged timeline tradeoffs. Crabtree and other testifiers explained that mediations are typically resolved in a single session, but mediations can require goodwill and participation from both parties. The Judiciary said it would provide the committee with case-data and clarification on per-case fee structure; Crabtree said mediation is generally billed per case and second sessions are relatively rare.

Committee discussion and final action: The committee voted to advance SB 825. At the decision-making meeting the recommendation to pass the bill was adopted; the roll call noted reservations from Representative Reyes Oda and recorded several no votes (Representative Lee and Representative Alcos recorded as no votes on the final tally). The committee left remaining implementation details — including precise case counts, per-case fee structure, and scheduling mechanics — to follow-up with the Judiciary and stakeholder groups.

What’s next: The committee recommended passage and the measure will advance to the next legislative stage; committee members asked staff to collect the Judiciary’s data and to clarify fee and scheduling procedures for mediations.

Sources: Committee hearing testimony from Jeff Crabtree (Judiciary, Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution), Tracy Wilkin (Mediation Center of the Pacific), Cassandra Shriver (Hawaii Realtors); committee decision-making minutes.