Homeless people living on the sidewalk between Stadium Park and King Street will have to leave before Tuesday evening or the city of Honolulu will clear away their things, Civil Beat reported last week.

“And there is space in our shelters for them,鈥 Hawaii homelessness coordinator Marc Alexander said at the time.

Alexander said the idea behind the sweeps is to push homeless to move into shelters and seek help. He said service providers have already reached out to homeless at Stadium Park to tell them where they can go.

But is there really enough shelter space for the homeless at Stadium Park?

Yes. But that doesn’t mean that homeless will trek to shelters after leaving the park.

For a list of shelters, Civil Beat turned to an maintained by Alexander’s office. The homeless leaving Stadium Park mainly have two options for emergency overnight shelters nearby: the Institute for Human Services and Next Step.

IHS director Connie Mitchell said that the shelter has 390 beds in total, and on Sunday night there were 60 open beds for men and 30 open beds for women. That’s enough to fit the people at Stadium Park. On Monday evening, there were 14 tents and roughly 20 people living on the sidewalk.

Asked if IHS planned to shuttle homeless from the park to the shelters, Mitchell said she hadn’t planned on it, but she’d consider it.

Another nearby option is Next Step 鈥 but they’re often full.

Next Step shelter rarely has an opening, said Darlene Hein, the director of community services the Waikiki Health Center. “Somebody moves out, somebody moves in within a few days,鈥 she said.

The health center took over operations of Next Step from H-5 this year. On an average night, the shelter is packed with people, Hein said.

Next Step can house about 220 people, including men, women and children, Hein said. Even when the shelter is full, staff do what they can to accommodate people displaced by sweeps.

鈥淚f they鈥檙e doing cleanups, we will often overfill,” she said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e never had a point where we had a cleanup and we weren鈥檛 able to take anybody who asked to come in.鈥

There’s a twist, though. Homeless people don’t necessarily flock to shelters after a sweep, Hein said. Some people resent shelter rules: no drinking, no smoking, no violence, no leaving the shelter late at night. Others may already have been kicked out of the shelter and have to complete drug rehab or anger management programs before they’re allowed back in.

Homeless won’t have much luck with other shelters in urban Honolulu.

Family Promise of Hawaii’s emergency shelters are for families only 鈥 and maintain an 80-family wait list, program manager Christy MacPherson said. Two transitional housing facilities said they were full, and others didn’t return phone calls Monday afternoon.

Bottom line: There is emergency shelter space in urban Honolulu for the homeless leaving Stadium Park this week. But there aren’t many nearby options beyond IHS.

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