The city is planning to close the beach park in Nänäkuli between Lualualei Naval Road and the District Court building at 87-1784 Farrington Highway beginning Monday for the latest in its series of beach cleanups.

About 24 homeless people have been camping in the area, although police Maj. Michael Moses said some have already started moving out.

"We're still doing it the same way we've done all the other cleanups," Moses said. "We give them 30 days notice, and we give all the service providers a heads up so they can go out and try to get these people to relocated to available shelters."

Nearly three years ago, the city adopted a plan to clean up and reclaim a 16-mile stretch city beach parks on the Wai'anae Coast that had been populated by an explosion of tent dwellers displaced by rapidly rising home prices.

Since the fall of 2006, park improvement projects have displaced hundreds of beach dwellers from Nänäkuli to Mäili to Waianae.

Service providers, however, lately have said that their task has been complicated by an increasing number of homeless people shunning beach parks and settling on remote, unimproved beaches that are difficult and dangerous to access.

Tulutulu Toa, a homeless programs specialist, and Utu Langi, who has a program that feeds Waianae Coast homeless people on weekends, are among numerous service providers who say the evacuations have caused the coast's westernmost beach park and an unimproved beach to the west of it to become overcrowded. They fear that the latest cleanups will only make matters worse.

Jo Jordan, chairwoman of the Waianae Coast Neighborhood Board, said she has heard concerns from residents about the already overcrowded conditions at Keaau Beach Park.

Jordon said her understanding is that by February the city will shut down and clean up the area between the District Court building and Mäili Point, which has a large homeless population. Jordan said that she's been told that shortly thereafter, the rest of the coast will be cleaned up as far as Keaau Beach Park.

Jordan said many in the area are afraid that that's where the city's cleanup efforts will end — leaving Keaau Beach Park as the last "out of sight, out of mind" refuge for many of Oahu's homeless people.

The area just past Keaau Beach Park — a dense thicket of underbrush with no water or facilities, known as "the wild West" — is the last outpost for scores of chronic homeless people, some of whom have lived in the bush for more than 10 years.

"We're beginning to get close to the end of that toothpaste tube," said Jordan. "All the stuff we envisioned several years ago, we are getting very close to realizing now."

Jordon, who has supported the park closures and cleanup efforts so far, said she wants Mäili Point and Keaau Beach Park to be cleaned up simultaneously. Otherwise, her support will end.

"I will support the clean ups until they clean up Mäili Point but not Keaau — because then they're picking one community over another, in my opinion," she said.

So far, though, the city has not indicated when it plans to clean up either Mäili Point or Keaau Beach Park, let alone the wilderness refuge beyond.