Some Hawaii lawmakers are aiming to adapt the “safe zone” approach to the islands’ homelessness crisis, and are realizing that this version will be different in more than name only.

Legislators in the thick of the debate have rebranded the government-sanctioned homeless camps as “ohana zones,” as a reference to their primary intended beneficiaries: families with children.

Additionally, they are clearly meant as more long-term accommodations for these families than the classic “safe zones” that have been tried in mainland urban settings. That is a rational response, under the circumstances: There is a shortage of affordable rentals into which they ideally would move in short order, so these have to resemble neighborhoods more than campsites.

Beyond that notion, however, there seems to be little agreement over how these communities should be built or, more to the point, over where they should be located. And that more than anything should limit how much elected leaders invest in this approach.

The state House, in particular, wants to focus on ohana zones in the coming year, expressly for homeless families with school-age children. Leadership supports budgeting about $30 million in capital improvement money for them.

House Speaker Scott Saiki said lawmakers are discussing sites and hopes to have more than one named by the end of session, a mere three weeks away. That would be the hoped-for outcome, but it’s anything but guaranteed.

There is a case to be made for resettling homeless families sooner rather than later: Studies have shown that children growing up in unstable conditions — such as a campsite pitched in unsafe, exposed locations — have decidedly worse outcomes in school, and in life generally.

But the ohana zones the House envisions won’t be quick, or cheap to build. They would look more like Kahauiki Village, built through a public-private venture on a state-owned parcel off Nimitz Highway.

That was delivered at a modest cost to the state: the land was transferred to the city, which put in nearly $4 million of infrastructure and leased the site at a nominal rate to private partners, who contributed substantially. No such benefactors exist for the ohana zones legislators want to fund, based on that relatively attractive model, so it’s still unclear how much could be accomplished.

The process of finding a site has been frustratingly slow, too. During the 2017 session, lawmakers established a working group to make recommendations of potential sites, among other elements of a “safe zone” plan.

The report, issued just before the 2018 session convened, also looked at established camps: three on the mainland and Camp Kikaha, the only officially sanctioned “safe zone” in the state. Since then, the Kailua-Kona zone has closed, after an eight-month experiment that, most have concluded, was a failure.

Further, the report did not reach any conclusion on a viable site in the state inventory. Problems were identified with each of the nine sites under review, including location within a residential area, a lack of infrastructure or insufficient size.

That experience — as well as failure by the City Council to identify sites, despite $2 million set aside for each district to do so — underscores the difficulty. It also reinforces why ohana zones must be better than makeshift affairs.

Social-service advocates have argued that the better course is to stick with established programs to fund “Housing First” placement in permanent housing. Thankfully, the House is moving Senate Bill 2401 to maintain funds for those approaches, while the Senate retains such funding in the state budget bill.

Lawmakers favoring ohana zones must come up with a site and a better blueprint for what is wanted. They should allot only enough funds for a pilot project; if that succeeds, it could be replicated.

Meanwhile, more established programs with a proven track record must not be abandoned in that pursuit.