The state's plan to build a permanent homeless shelter in urban Honolulu to replace one hastily set up in a Kaka'ako warehouse two years ago is on hold after legislators declined to fund the governor's $20 million request for the new facility.

The shelter was a key component in the state's push to tackle homelessness in the Islands.

But lawmakers said the state failed to sell the project, offering few specifics on the facility.

State Rep. Marcus Oshiro, chairman of the House Finance Committee, said there were concerns as well about how the urban shelter would be run.

"There wasn't any clear management plan or ongoing maintenance costs," Oshiro said. "That really troubled me."

State officials counter that they provided all the information they had available.

'REALLY NEEDED' FUNDS

Homeless advocates are now trying to figure out how to move forward.

"The need for an urban shelter hasn't gone away," said Doran Porter, executive director of Affordable Housing and Homeless Alliance, which oversees operations and services at the state's Next Step shelter in Kaka'ako. "We really needed that money to make it happen."

Porter said there is still hope the urban shelter will be built, but now there is talk of seeking private funding or looking elsewhere for public money. The good news is that state officials learned last week they're not under as much pressure to move Next Step out of Kaka'ako.

In addition to looking for a permanent home for Next Step in the urban core, the state had been preparing to move shelter residents to one or more temporary facilities this summer because the Forrest Avenue warehouse where people are now housed is to be the new headquarters of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. But OHA has pushed off construction of its new facility.

And Next Step is being told it can stay in Kaka'ako at least until sometime in 2009.

State Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland, Human Services Committee chairwoman, said the urban shelter was a casualty of a tight budget and deep cuts in appropriations fairly late in the session as legislators tried to make ends meet. Chun Oakland supported the $20 million appropriation for the shelter, but saw it get cut to $10 million and then to $5 million as it moved through committees. Shortly before the close of the session May 1, funding was eliminated.

She also said more details on the proposed facility would have helped the case for the project.

Oshiro said lawmakers never got information on whether the state planned to construct a new building or retrofit an old one, and weren't told of any of the potential sites for the shelter.

"It was very, very difficult to allocate $20 million, not knowing what you're getting into," Oshiro said.

State Sen. Rosalyn Baker, chairwoman of the Ways and Means Committee, agreed.

"We needed more specifics," she said.

State officials say they gave lawmakers all the details they could.

They added that the process of finding a site for the shelter has been more difficult than expected. They still have a number of potential sites they are looking at, but none of them has been brought to the public for comment and it's unclear how much the proposals would cost.

'BACK TO SQUARE ZERO'

Russ Saito, state comptroller and the governor's special adviser on homelessness, said the lack of state funding for the shelter is discouraging.

"It's back to square zero," he said yesterday.

Saito said lawmakers were given 10 options for how the money could be spent.

The options were discussed generically "because everything was exploratory," Saito said.

While the state looks for other ways to make Next Step permanent, new people aren't being admitted into the Kaka'ako facility. There are about 200 people at Next Step shelter, down from 300 a year ago. Porter said it's unclear when the shelter will resume admitting new people.

He has reached out to other shelters to help meet the need.

But they are also crowded, and most can't accept more people.

On Monday alone, he said, he got five calls from people seeking space at the shelter.

Meanwhile, Saito said the state is still pinning hope on placing some Next Step families at Puahala Homes, where 14 public housing units have been renovated for transitional shelter space.

But the plan has run into opposition from residents who say it is unfair to people on the waiting list for public housing, and next Thursday the Hawai'i Public Housing Authority board will vote on whether to rescind approval to use the units as a transitional shelter.

Next Step opened in May 2006 — as the state's first shelter — in the wake of the city's decision to close Ala Moana Beach Park at night, forcing about 200 homeless people to move elsewhere. When the shelter started up, officials expected it to be needed for about eight months, estimating that would be enough time to place those at the shelter in permanent housing.

The state spent about $540,000 converting the warehouse into a shelter.