With the expected opening of the state's most ambitious emergency homeless shelter next month, no service provider has been found to operate the facility.

Already two Island agencies have decided they're not equipped to run the first comprehensive, around-the-clock emergency facility in Wai'anae, including the Institute for Human Services — one of the largest and most experienced homeless service providers in Hawai'i.

While the state is confident a shelter operator will be found, the eleventh-hour situation underscores the monumental nature of the task it confronts. Even as the state races to build new shelters, O'ahu's homeless organizations are stretched to the breaking point and struggling to handle the clients they already have. Funding is limited, qualified personnel are at a premium and few, if any, organizations have experience running a 24-hour shelter, they say.

Some have said the agencies simply aren't prepared to deal with the tide of homelessness the government is trying to stem.

"I don't think any of the service providers are adequately staffed and experienced enough" to handle what's known as the Wai'anae "Civic Center" shelter, said homeless advocate and former state senator, the Rev. Bob Nakata.

"The homeless problem was neglected for so long that now it's of such magnitude it will take years to catch up," Nakata said.

The state acknowledges the daunting nature of trying to correct a mounting social crisis that, by its own admission, has been caused in part by years of governmental neglect.

"It's going to be very challenging," said Kaulana Park, the state's homeless solutions team coordinator. "I'm sure that in the beginning we'll have our headaches trying to put it together."

For example, shelter managers who took over operations on short notice at the Kaka'ako emergency shelter and the Kalaeloa transitional shelter have had to create procedures on the job, he said.

"There are some growing pains involved," Park said. "As shelter managers, first time at it, they kind of learn as they go."

WEIGHING OPTIONS

But he pointed to the success of the Kaka'ako shelter and insisted that a suitable matchup will be found for the Wai'anae Civic Center site. He said he is negotiating with other providers, and that one nonprofit service agency has expressed definite interest in running the facility.

And if it doesn't work out that a single provider can handle the job, the state may try a team approach.

"Because there's a limited supply of providers ... it may be a team of organizations instead of just one, similar to our Next Step program at Kaka'ako," Park said.

That temporary shelter uses a coalition of three organizations: The Affordable Housing and Homeless Alliance (administrative), Hawai'i Helping the Hungry Have Hope (operational), and the Waikiki Health Center (social services).

So far that approach has worked well, according to many familiar with the operation, with each organization bringing its specialty to a phase of the operation.

Still, there's no playbook for what's being attempted at the Wai'anae facility, which will be the state's main emergency homeless shelter. That difficulty is compounded by a changing — and growing — homeless population, in addition to the challenges already faced by homeless service agencies.

ECONOMIC FACTORS

Darlene Hein, director of the Waikiki Health Center Care-A-Van, a homeless outreach program, said service organizations are having difficulty attracting and keeping qualified personnel because of the economy.

"I had a licensed clinical social worker who came from New Mexico," she said. "She stayed for six months and left and said, 'I can't afford to live here.' "

Furthermore, in addition to the chronic homeless individuals who have been around for years, providers now wrestle with a rapidly expanding homeless phenomenon — hordes of folks who simply can't find a place to live on an island with among the highest rents in the country.

"The people with lots of needs are still there, and their numbers have grown somewhat," Hein said. "But now you also have a much larger number of people who just need some help ... because housing has become so expensive."

Such individuals require resources that traditionally would go to the chronic homeless, Hein said.

Margot Schrire, Institute for Human Services director of community relations, said the latest category includes many of the homeless that occupy the beaches along a 16-mile stretch of the Wai'anae Coast.

"It's a very different group of people out there," said Schrire, explaining why her agency turned down the opportunity to run the Civic Center shelter. "We are working in urban Honolulu. So we have a population that is a lot of families, but also chronically homeless people.

"And the folks who are out on the beaches are coming from a slightly different group in some sense. It's going to take a very culturally sensitive and community-based approach for that (Wai'anae) shelter to be effective. Right now an effort like that would exceed our fiscal and personnel capacity."

PROVIDER DOUBTS

Nakata is among those who doubt that a single service provider will be found to manage the Civic Center site, which is scheduled to open by late January.

He sits on the board of the Honolulu Community Action Program, a nonprofit agency serving O'ahu's low-income families. He said HCAP also decided against taking over the Civic Center facility, citing a small staff that isn't trained for such a task, and the fact that the agency has no experience running a shelter.

He agrees that the Wai'anae Civic Center site is the most enterprising program of its kind attempted by the state.

"And I've had concerns that it's too big for any agency to handle," Nakata said.

The homeless crisis has reached such proportions that "we cannot catch up fast enough. So, that's why we need emergency shelters," he said. "But I think they need to be smaller until the experience is gained."

Park, the state homeless coordinator, is confident that the growing pains will bequeath social gains as the process finds its balance.

He sees a silver lining to his mission in that many, if not most, of the Wai'anae Coast beach homeless do not fall into the "chronic homeless" category.

"Because they are not chronic, it shouldn't take as long to get them back on their feet," Park said. "I think we'll have some immediate successes."

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.