In October 2006, The Honolulu Advertiser published its award-winning, five-part series, Homeless on The Wai'anae Coast. It showed how an explosion of homelessness brought on largely by soaring rents and fewer affordable rentals were affecting people and the agencies trying to help them.

Since then, shelters have opened and both the public and private sectors have become more involved. Today's reports highlight the progress made and how the focus has shifted from getting families off the beaches to helping them become self-sufficient, and about motivating hard-core beach dwellers to join the process.

The state will spend more than $25 million to expand its campaign against homelessness on the Wai'anae Coast in 2008, nearly triple the amount expended in the 16 months since the governor vowed to solve the crisis.

Two new state shelters are planned, and construction is under way on a $13.5 million facility paid for mostly by the state and run by a religious group. That facility will offer a full spectrum of housing, from emergency shelter to get people off the streets and beaches, to the low-income rentals needed to help keep them off.

If successful, Kahikolu 'Ohana Hale O Wai'anae, scheduled to open in June, could be the springboard to as many as five similar operations on O'ahu by 2012, said Pastor Wade "Boo" Soares, the group's founder. The state has committed nearly $11 million to that project alone.

The state also will open its $12 million, 80-unit Ma'ili Villages transitional shelter off St. Johns Road by the end of 2008. And it expects to spend $3 million to refurbish another military building in Kalaeloa for a second emergency/transitional shelter there.

It was during the summer of 2006 that the sight of legions of homeless — many of them children — living in a virtual tent city along 16 miles of the Wai'anae Coast put a face on one of Hawai'i's most pressing social problems and captured the attention of the public and public officials.

Gov. Linda Lingle called the situation shameful and pledged action.

Since then, the state has spent $9.3 million to build two new shelters on the coast. By last week, 1,158 people had received help through those shelters, 378 of whom have moved into housing, according to state figures. Today, there are noticeably fewer families and children living on the beaches.

Lingle said she is especially heartened that so many families accepted the shelter program.

"I think we're making progress," she said. "But we have a long way to go."

Tents still dot much of the coastline, and area residents differ on whether the state's efforts are making a difference.

To some degree, what residents think depends on where they live.

Janelle Dereis, for example, lives near Ma'ili Beach Park, along Farrington Highway between St. Johns and Kaukamana roads. In little more than two years, starting in 2004, the park had transformed into the most heavily populated homeless beach on the coast. As this year began, it had become the focal point of Hawai'i's entire homeless crisis.

OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM

But on March 27, citing the recent opening of the Pai'olu Kaiaulu emergency homeless shelter in Wai'anae, city authorities evacuated the beach, cleaned it and closed the park to the public between 10:30 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Today, it remains tent free and serves as the model for other park cleanups.

Dereis agreed with her neighbors who say the state's homeless plan seems to be making progress.

"I pretty much think it's good," she said. "I'm glad they cleared off the beach. There's no more theft, there's no more domestic violence every night. It's better. It's more clean. It's safer."

But nearby, east of St. Johns Road at Ma'ili Point, where dozens of beach dwellers are still encamped, the community is pessimistic. Many folks expressed frustration and outright anger that the problem persists.

Some, such as resident Anita Moni, don't blame the state as much as those living in tents who have rejected the shelter system now in place.

"The state is doing its part, but they are not doing theirs," she said. "I hear stories that they don't like the shelter curfew, and they don't like the rules they'd have to follow. A lot of us don't like rules, but we still have to follow them no matter what."

However, lifelong area resident Cheryl Key, a teller at Payday Loans across the road from the Ma'ili Point tent city, said the homeless problem can't be solved overnight. She urged patience.

"It's a process," Key said. "It takes time. Things are improving because now they have the shelters, which they didn't have before. And they have community outreach programs and churches that are helping out."

Hundreds of homeless still live on the shore from Nanakuli to Makaha, and many are reluctant to join the state's shelter and treatment programs. Officials have indicated that other beach encampments will eventually be evacuated but have not said when.

Kaulana Park, the state's homeless solutions coordinator for the Wai'anae Coast, has said that before the 275-bed Pai'olu Kaiaulu shelter opened, the emphasis was on moving homeless parents with kids off the sand and into shelters as quickly as possible. At that time, the coast's beaches had more than twice as many homeless families than any other location in the state.

Once the emergency shelter opened in March, it was those families that flocked to get in — eager to get away from an unstable, often hostile existence on the beach, Park said.

Those left represent a population that's grown accustomed to beach living and is resistant to change. "We have taken most of the families with kids off the beaches through the shelters," Park said. "Now we're getting down to couples and singles who have been on the beaches for a long time and can't really adapt to a shelter at this point."

Annie and John Pau are a case in point. Married 40 years, they were evicted from their rented Ma'ili home in 2002. Although they have an income, it's not enough to cover rent on any area apartment. So, after bouncing from one beach to another, four years ago the couple settled at what's now one of the two largest tent camps on the coast — Lualualei Beach Park No. 1, otherwise known as "Sewers Beach."

"We're here, and we're here to stay," said Annie Pau, who refers to Pai'olu Kaiaulu as "the concentration camp." It doesn't seem homey, she contended. At her age, she's not into rules, and she has no use for the emergency shelter's mandatory treatment programs.

"Why do I have to go into treatment programs? I'm 56, I don't drink and I don't do drugs, and I never have."

But she and John, 61, agreed the main sticking point is the shelter's refusal to take animals. And they won't part with their two poi dogs, Hey You, a terrier, and Baboo, who's so fat that Hey You uses him as a platform to stand on.

"We don't have children," Annie said. "Our dogs are our children. I was at a community meeting and one woman said to me, 'Auntie, you have to make sacrifices.' And I said, 'OK, when you give up your firstborn I'll give up my dogs.' "

WON'T HAND OVER BEACHES

The governor said she understands the reluctance by some to accept the shelter program.

"There are going to be people who, no matter what, are going to stay on the beach because they want to — whether it is because of a lifestyle, or because they don't want to abide by the rules in the shelter," she said.

While it is necessary for the state to provide shelter for people who have no alternative to homelessness — particularly when so many are innocent children — she has little sympathy for adults who just choose to stay.

"We are simply not going to turn over the public beaches to people for places to live," Lingle said. "It's not fair. Taxpayers are maintaining those beaches for everyone's enjoyment."

The Paus say they can deal with whatever comes. They realize they may be forced to leave. Eventually, the city has promised that all the coastal beaches will be evacuated and cleaned up. As that happens, Soares believes Kahikolu, his new facility, will be ready to help.

"You have to come up with creative ideas to get these folks self-sufficient so that we can transition them back into the community," Soares said.

His facility — on nearly four acres that had housed an Uluwehi apartment complex demolished in 2005 — will offer six dozen transitional and low-income rental units plus a 40-bed emergency men's and women's dormitory shelter.

"The last thing we need to do is have people get caught back in the circle of homelessness. What we're planning to do is give everyone who comes through here the tools they need to not only get out of that circle, but to stay out."

The key is skilled, high-paying jobs within the community so formerly homeless individuals can maintain a decent lifestyle, he said.

"For instance, right now we're planning to get our general contractor's license so that we can create jobs," said Soares, president of the Hawai'i Coalition of Christian Churches, which proposed the facility and will operate it. "I'm talking to the flooring union to see if they can bring their apprentice program to our site."

Soares also is working with area service agencies, such as the Wai'anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, which has said it could provide a retail training program that could help people get jobs with stores coming to Kapolei, such as Target, Costco and Wal-Mart, and a luxury Disney hotel scheduled to open at Ko Olina resort that's expected to create 1,000 jobs.

Park is confident the state has charted a course that in time will end homelessness on the Wai'anae Coast.

"What's on track is doing the emergency shelters, getting the transitional shelters up and running, getting the public housing units prepared, and providing more affordable rentals and housing," Park said.

"And in addition to all of that, it's making sure that all our people have the education and job assistance so that they can afford to stay in these places. They've got to understand how to maintain their jobs as well as their financial literacy."

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.