The state Department of Transportation on Monday cleaned out a small but troublesome homeless encampment across from the Market City Shopping Center — and Gov. David Ige and Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell hours later said they’re still working on a plan to clear out the expanding homeless encampment in Kakaako.

Two homeless people who live in two different spots on DOT land on Harding Avenue under an H-1 freeway overpass sat on the sidewalk after the sweep and told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that they planned to sleep there again Monday night.

Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi, who represents the area, said, “People go right back.” She added, “It’s so discouraging.”

Kobayashi voted for the city’s “sit-lie” ban that forced homeless people out of Waikiki and also fueled the expansion of both the estimated 300-person Kakaako encampment and the one on Harding Avenue, which had included about two dozen homeless people.

Sit-lie “just doesn’t work,” Kobayashi said. “It just keeps pushing people all over and into the neighboring districts.”

A man who would give only his first name, Kevin, said he left Harding Avenue just before Monday morning’s three-hour DOT cleanup.

When Kevin returned, everything — and everyone — was missing, including the reclining office chair that he slept on.

“Gone, all gone,” he said. “Everybody just disappeared.”

Kevin still had a red flannel blanket that he planned to sleep on Monday night on Harding Avenue, which is sheltered from the sun and rain by the overpass. Another man, who declined to give his name, still had all of his belongings because he walked across the street with them when 15 DOT highway maintenance crew members and 13 state sheriff’s deputies arrived for the cleanup, which filled up two dump trucks with 14 cubic feet of the homeless’s belongings.

When the cleanup crew left, the man simply walked back to the Harding Avenue spot, where he planned to sleep Monday night.

Speaking in general about homeless cleanups, Ige later told reporters at a Capitol news conference that “once you clear an area, you have to be vigilant with enforcement.”

Ige and Caldwell spoke after the first “working meeting” of Ige’s week-old Governor’s Leadership Team on Homelessness and said it is continuing to look for places to accommodate homeless people in Kakaako.

Managing Director Roy Amemiya previously told the Star-Advertiser that homeless people living on the outer edges of the encampment would be given up to seven days’ notice sometime in August. As of Monday no one had been given notice, said Caldwell spokesman Jesse Broder Van Dyke.

Ige said the nearby Next Step Shelter would be the most likely place that would take in the first people relocated from Kakaako.

It would cost $1.8 million per year to house 400 people at Next Step, Ige said.

But several homeless people living in the encampment — including the mothers of the two boys who allegedly assaulted state Rep. Tom Brower (D, Wai- kiki-Ala Moana-Kakaako) on June 29 — have told the Star-Advertiser that they tried living at Next Step yet ended up on the street for a variety of reasons, including the theft or disappearance of personal items, conflicts with shelter rules — and because they had to go somewhere during the day.

Ige’s new committee identified a potential site that could accommodate homeless people on North King Street across from Aala Park that would be called the Liliha Civic Center and is near services that could help homeless people.

Caldwell also said that the bankrupt Hilo Hattie property on Nimitz Highway remains a possibility even after his administration declined to bid on the site because of a potential $105,000 monthly lease. On Monday, Caldwell said only the current landowner — the Weinberg Foundation — submitted a bid, and a new, more affordable lease could be possible.

Caldwell reiterated his position that Honolulu’s sit-lie ban is legal only in business districts such as Waikiki. If applied islandwide, as some Council members are suggesting, Caldwell said it would not withstand a legal challenge.

Asked whether he supported a sit-lie ban that could force homeless people onto state and private property, Ige demurred. Instead, he said he supports cooperation among state, county and federal officials.

On Harding Avenue, Kevin said the homeless population began to thin out over the past few weeks as sheriff’s deputies warned them that they were about to be swept.

Every February and August, DOT highway maintenance crews clear out homeless encampments on DOT land for one to two weeks — at a cost of $250,000 to $300,000 for each series of sweeps, DOT spokesman Tim Sakahara said. The work requires DOT highway maintenance crews to clear out belongings of the homeless rather than work at their normal jobs, which include repairing potholes, signs and bridges.

While at least two of the Harding Avenue homeless returned after the DOT cleanup, workers at a nearby used-car dealership were pleased with the sweep.

Jeff Morris, manager of KIC Motors, acknowledged that “before the week’s over, half of them will be back.”

But Morris said something had to be done to clear out an area at the intersection of Kapahulu and Harding avenues that’s seen every day by tourists going in and out of Waikiki.

The homeless encampment, Morris said, symbolized “a pretty poor representation of paradise.”

Even though the encampment grew as the sit-lie ban forced homeless people out of Waikiki, Morris supports applying the ban islandwide.

Asked where the homeless will then go, Morris said, “I don’t care. I’m not in charge of that.”