Molly Solomon
Molly Solomon joined HPR in May 2012 as an intern for the morning talk show The Conversation. She has since worn a variety of hats around the station, doing everything from board operator to producer.
She is now the General Assignment reporter and covers a number of important topics including education, tourism, and food sustainability. A California native, Molly joined HPR after graduating from University of California Santa Cruz with a BA in Sociology. At UC Santa Cruz, she volunteered at KZSC as well as the student newspaper, City on a Hill Press. When she's not reporting local news, Molly can usually be spotted riding her bike around Kaimukī or eating her way through Oʻahu's plethora of Japanese restaurants.
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California leased hotel rooms for unhoused residents during the pandemic to move them out of crowded shelters. Then it bought some of those hotels to create long-term homes for them. -
California's Project Homekey buys motels and turns them into housing for its homeless population. It's resulted in 94 new housing projects across the state. Three are run by Native American tribes.
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California has announced a plan to extend the state's COVID-related eviction moratorium through the end of September. The proposal includes a provision to pay all past-due rent for tenants.
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A group of moms occupying an empty house in Oakland, Calif., have been evicted and arrested. They were squatting to draw attention to the city's housing and homelessness crisis.
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Two homeless mothers in Oakland are fighting to stay in an empty house that they've taken over. They're against speculators who are buying vacant housing amid the Bay Area's growing housing crisis.
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President Trump's new tariffs have ports and steel manufacturers in the West uneasy, as they rely on steel imports from the Pacific Rim. -
In Hawaii, more than 34,000 acres of forest have died from a mysterious disease. The blight is affecting a tree critical to Hawaii's natural water supply and cultural heritage. -
During the height of summer tourist season, miles of beaches have been closed. Flooding from heavy rains caused more than 500,000 gallons of waste to overflow from manholes and cascade into the surf.
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In Hawaii, a battle is going on over the future of a mountaintop. Native Hawaiians say it's sacred ground, but astronomers say it's the best place in the world to build an 18-story telescope. -
The camp, created in 1943, held as many as 4,000 prisoners — including hundreds of Japanese-Americans — and became known as "Hell's Valley."
