For many, getting off the beach starts with years on the waiting list — if they can get on it at all.

At least three times a week, Zalei Kamaile climbs into her old, banged-up compact sedan and goes in search of a home.

Kamaile isn't real picky.

All she wants is a safe, clean, affordable place where she, her 78-year-old mother and their 45-year-old disabled friend can call home.

But since late June when the trio took up residence on a Wai'anae Coast beach, the caretaker for her mother and friend has returned from her frequent home-hunting trips with the same news.

Everything is too expensive.

Kamaile has come up against the one thing that the homeless crisis along the Wai'anae Coast has made abundantly clear. O'ahu has a severe shortage of rentals for those on the lower end of the income scale.

"I don't know why it's so hard to get an affordable place," said Kamaile, 54. "What's happening to Hawai'i? Where has all the affordable housing gone?"

The difficulty that Kamaile and others on the beach have encountered in their search for housing comes as no surprise given what has happened along the coast over the past decade and the economics of the real estate market.

On the affordable rental front, little has happened.

Although the state has assisted in the development of about 30 projects totaling more than 2,800 affordable rental units on O'ahu since 1996, not a single one has been built along the coast.

Just the opposite has occurred.

The state's inventory of affordable rentals from Nanakuli to Makaha actually has shrunk. Last year, it demolished the 60-unit Uluwehi Apartments because the public housing project had fallen into such disrepair that renovation no longer was feasible. Uluwehi represented nearly 20 percent of the state's rental inventory in the region.

The demolition couldn't have come at a worse time.

CASHING IN

While the need for affordable rentals never has been greater, as indicated by the unprecedented sight of hundreds of families living on the coast beaches, the dynamics of the real estate market have made matters worse.

Housing prices the past few years have risen dramatically along the coast, prompting landlords to pull properties off the rental market to cash in on the real estate boom. Rental rates, in turn, have surged as the number of rentals declined, putting more upward pressure on pricing.

The number of renter-occupied homes statewide shrank about 1 percent between 2000 and 2005, while the number of owner-occupied homes rose more than 12 percent, according to the latest U.S. Census figures. Comparable figures were not available for the Wai'anae Coast, but real estate analysts say the rental market there has experienced bigger drops in supply and higher increases in rent, especially among lower-priced properties.

A studio apartment that used to cost $450 a month in Makaha as recently as a year or two ago, for example, now commands roughly double that price, residents say.

State and city officials recognize that one of the keys to resolving the homeless crisis lies in boosting the supply of affordable rentals.

To achieve that goal, the state has new tools to forge partnerships with developers.

It now is able to lease land to nonprofits for $1 a year if the organizations develop and maintain affordable housing on that land. It also is adding millions of dollars to a trust fund dedicated to building more affordable rentals.

Helped by those or other programs, several projects along the coast already are in the planning pipeline, with at least one expected to charge rents as little as $335 a month. But most of the developments are not expected to be completed for several years.

Even then, only a fraction of the pent-up demand will be met.

"The fact is, all of us (developers) combined won't even wet the whistle to meet demand because the problem is so pervasive, so huge," said Mike Klein, executive director and founder of Hawaii Intergenerational Community Development Association, which has two affordable housing projects in the pipeline for Nanakuli.

Because a long-term solution to the homeless crisis is years away under the most optimistic of scenarios, short-term measures also are being pursued, such as building more transitional and emergency shelters to get people off the beaches.

One such project, an emergency shelter in Wai'anae, is scheduled to be completed by year's end.

But those short-term measures likewise are not expected to come close to meeting demand.

Already, strains are evident.

'EVERYTHING IS FULL'

The coast's two main transitional shelters, where homeless families can stay for up to two years while they search for permanent housing, have months-long waiting lists.

"Everything is full," said Lei Costello, operations manager for Ohana Ola O'Kahumana, a 14-unit transitional shelter in Wai'anae that is adding 34 more units early next year. "We're in dire need of more facilities."

Another key program that can help the homeless get off the beaches has even longer waits.

Called Section 8, the program provides monthly subsidies to income-eligible families so they can afford to pay rent to private landlords. Under the federally funded program, which is administered by the state and city, a family pays 30 percent of its income toward monthly rent and the government covers the rest — up to what is deemed reasonable for that area.

But there's a major catch.

Beach dwellers could wait years to get help.

So many applicants — about 10,000 — are on the waiting list for the city's Section 8 program that those on the tail end may not get assistance until a decade from now, according to city officials.

The situation is only a little better at the state level.

If all 4,200 applicants on the state's list are deemed eligible, it will take more than five years to deplete the backlog, officials say.

The demand for Section 8 help has been so intense that the state stopped taking applications for eight years to catch up. In July, it re-opened the process, only to be inundated once more. After a week, the state stopped taking any more applications.

The city also is not taking new applications so it can work through its backlog.

Venise Lewis, 35, who became homeless four years ago when her landlord sold the Ma'ili home her family had been renting, has been on both waiting lists for about a year, and she still doesn't know when she might get help.

"I check every three months," Lewis said.

Lewis, her husband and two of their children are living at Ma'ili Beach Park. Even though she and her husband have part-time jobs — she works for a grocery chain and he's employed at a roofing company — they have been unable to find an affordable rental.

As with other efforts to help the homeless, the Section 8 program has been hurt by the booming real estate market.

While the need for rental assistance has surged, rising rents have meant fewer people are getting help. The state is assisting roughly 1,900 families, compared with 2,300 at the beginning of 2005.

Higher rents and dwindling supply also have contributed to what is called the hidden homeless problem.

Many coast families who can't afford their own homes are crammed into those of relatives and friends, sometimes sharing quarters with three or four other families. Often, they are only a paycheck or family squabble away from joining the ranks of the homeless.

"There are thousands and thousands" of hidden homeless, said Kamika Kanahele, president of the Nanakuli Hawaiian Homestead Association.

Kanahele knows of one extended family of 72 sharing the same house in Nanakuli. At one time, more than 100 lived in the home, he was told.

"People can't afford homes," said Shana Rogers, 32, who has been living on the beach for three years. "It's too expensive. That's why you have to have two, three, four families in one house."

Kamaile, the caretaker for her mother and friend, said she has looked at homes in town and along the coast but everything was either too expensive or not suitable for a person who is elderly or in a wheelchair. The three have a combined income of about $1,700 a month.

At one transitional shelter, she was turned down because the facility houses only families with children.

Kamaile, who became homeless when her Kalihi landlord decided to sell his house, also has signed up for Section 8 assistance, but she has no idea when, or if, that will come through. "All you can do is wait," she said.

For about a week and a half recently, Kamaile, her mother and their friend lived in her compact car while the city cleaned the beach park where they were living.

Kamaile and others on the beach say the state should be doing more to develop affordable rentals.

PROJECTS IN KAPOLEI

While no state-backed rental projects have been built along the coast over the past decade, officials say hundreds of affordable homes — rental and for-sale — have gone up in Kapolei and those help meet the housing needs of the entire Leeward Coast, including Wai'anae.

"That's addressing the issue from our perspective," said Dan Davidson, executive director of the state's Hawai'i Housing Finance & Development Corp.

State officials also say attracting developers to the coast has been difficult because of the many challenges of building there, including the high cost of installing adequate sewage facilities and other infrastructure.

Such explanations don't sit well with beach residents. They say the government should broaden its efforts, and the main focus has to be reining in soaring rents.

"The state needs to get some kind of rent control," said Jamie Calarruda, 46, who has been living on the beach about six months. "That's the bottom line."

Reach Rob Perez at rperez@honoluluadvertiser.com.