I don't think Duke Aiona understands "helping".

The ad that played said, "help people get the down payment to buy a home."  So I went to look at this program.

Here's the "fact sheet."

The important points to take away from this are:

Q. How many people will this help? 

A. A projected average of 5,200 per year will be able to participate.

So this will help 1/3 of a percent of the population.  What do they need to do?  For the hypothetical $1500 rent/ $500 maintenance fees renter they model:

Number of Years Tenant Pays Down Payment Account Balance

5 $20,160

10 $44,520

15 $74,550

20 $110,880

25 $155,600 

Some math says this amounts to something like $300 a month going into a 4% interest fund.  Housing inflation in Hawaii seems to be about 1%, so that's an issue.  The other issue is that this hypothetical rental is $2000/month in total.  Using my apartment as a quick guess, this means the rental is somewhere in the $450k price range.  So even in a best case scenario, after 25 years in the program, you're still going to need to take out a loan for $300k.