After Monday’s cleanup of a homeless encampment along Beretania Street, homeless advocates and government officials are now targeting six to 10 other encampments across Oahu.

The sites stretch from Waialua to Waikiki and include Old Stadium Park in Moiliili, Diamond Head and property owned by PBS Hawaii across from the Hawai’i Convention Center, said Marc Alexander, Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s coordinator on homelessness.

Monday’s effort was the result of months of coordination between homeless shelters and outreach workers, and came after two weeks’ notice to the homeless people living along Beretania Street across from Aala Park.

The next areas that will be targeted will follow the same model, Alexander said.

He insisted that any future cleanups will not be driven by the Nov. 7-13 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

"These are not ‘sweeps’ — that’s easy to do," Alexander said. "What we do takes time. We want to help these people and do it in a humane way and make sure there’s space in the shelters and our service providers are notified and ready to go."

Homeless service providers have been telling homeless people in Waikiki that they will have to relocate from security zones that will be off-limits to most people during APEC, which will draw President Barack Obama and the heads of 20 other nations, said Darlene Hein, director of community services for the Waikiki Health Center, which also operates the Next Step homeless shelter in Kakaako.

"Between the APEC security zones and being on private property, we’ve been saying, ‘There’s a good chance you’ll have to move,’" Hein said. "It’s not just because of APEC. When a group of people grows into an encampment that’s quite large, sanitation becomes a problem, neighbors get worried, things start happening and the city and state get a lot of push to do something about it, and that’s not going to change."

So, in general, Hein tells homeless people, "Don’t cluster, spread out. When you get a lot of garbage and animals and people and stuff in one place, everybody starts complaining."

Each of the sites has to be targeted separately, Alexander said.

The Beretania Street location, the property across from the Hawai’i Convention Center and an encampment in Waialua are privately owned and make it easier for police to move out homeless people, Alexander said.

"The private landowners want to do it the right way, too," Alexander said. "They want to help these people."

Other encampments, such as the one along King Street fronting the city’s Old Stadium Park, are on government land and offer their own problems, Alexander said.

"Old Stadium Park is more complicated because there are two (city) ordinances involved," he said.

A BAN on overnight camping inside the park is relatively easy to enforce, Alexander said. But homeless people get around the ban by sleeping in tents on the sidewalk just outside the park.

"As long as they allow access along the sidewalk, it’s harder to enforce," Alexander said. "We are doing intensive outreach to that area and trying to figure out what’s going to be our next step."

Whatever happens, Alexander and his counterparts with the city cannot tackle all of the areas simultaneously, he said.

"We never say, ‘We don’t have a place for you to go,’" Alexander said. "That’s why we can’t do every place at once."

Residents such as Les Among, a member of the Waikiki Neighborhood Board, worry about where the homeless people across from the Hawai’i Convention Center will go once they’re told to leave the property owned by PBS Hawaii, a private, nonprofit entity.

"We don’t know where they’re going to land, where they’ll end up," Among said. "They’re scattering, but they’re not really completely going away. I have no confidence in what’s going on. They’re just going to find another place nearby in the neighborhood. Nobody’s here to help them make the transition. I’m so disappointed. This is a complete failure on the state’s part."

Donya Hernandes, 40, was born and raised in Waikiki and has lived across from the convention center for nearly two years.

"I’ve had five nervous breakdowns already, and most of us can’t handle not knowing where we’re going to live," Hernandes said. "Some of us have chemical dependency and mental illness or both. I don’t know where I’ll go."

Leslie Wilcox, president and CEO of PBS Hawaii, did not respond to requests for comment about why PBS needs to move homeless people off its property and when they’ll be asked to leave.

State Rep. Tom Brower (D, Waikiki-Ala Moana) has often criticized the state’s and city’s handling of homeless issues and believes they should create a "safe zone" somewhere on Oahu for homeless people to live outdoors, as many homeless people prefer.

But Brower believes state and city officials need to help landowners.

"The right thing to do is to help private landowners remove people who are unlawfully camping on their property," Brower said.

He lives a block from the convention center and says he can’t understand why city and state officials refuse to call their homeless efforts "sweeps" — and why they insist their cleanups are not driven by APEC.

"Whether it’s a sweep or whether it’s a cleanup, essentially it’s the same result," Brower said. "While they’re arguing over the issue of semantics and whether it’s for APEC or not, residents really don’t care. They just want their parks and their sidewalks to be clean."