The first draft of a sweeping plan to battle homelessness heads to the City Council from Mayor Kirk Caldwell today.

The Caldwell administration declined to release details, but the mayor and his top aides have said that it will draw heavily from the principles of New York City’s "housing first" concept, which focuses immediately on providing permanent shelter. Other issues — including mental illness, drug abuse and joblessness — are addressed later.

Many current programs require someone with substance abuse problems to seek treatment in exchange for housing.

Jun Yang, Caldwell’s executive director on housing, said at a town hall meeting last week that "many times treatment can actually be the barrier that stops a homeless person from getting into housing."

Instead, "re-housing should be the central goal of working with our homeless," he said.

The housing-first philosophy gives first priority to those with the most severe disabilities and others who are most vulnerable, he said. Shelters are offered without any requirement to participate in support services, although such services are offered "without coercion."

Yang and Community Services Director Pamela Witty-Oakland were asked to come up with the plan, originally slated to be submitted May 1. The administration asked for an eight-day extension from Councilwoman Carol Fukunaga, chairwoman of the Public Safety and Economic Development Committee.

A recent count found that there are 4,556 people on Oahu who can be defined as homeless, Yang said. Of those, 1,465 can be considered "unsheltered homeless." Of those, 505 are considered "chronic homeless," he said.

Where the people will be sheltered and how the effort will be funded have not yet been identified by the administration and are expected to be the main points addressed by the administration’s plan today. The mayor’s 2014 operating budget does not set aside any money specifically for the initiative.

Councilman Stanley Chang said he strongly endorses a housing-first policy, but said Caldwell’s two most recent predecessors were unsuccessful at small-scale initiatives. Mufi Hannemann’s plan to establish a housing facility on the mauka end of River Street ran into opposition from the Chinatown community, while Peter Carlisle’s request for proposals mustered one developer that later had to cancel its project.

Caldwell said in April that his plan will likely include a model that is "not so much in one, very large building but may be scattered throughout rentals in our urban communities … like Waikiki and Chinatown."

Chang said there are likely several sources of funding that can be made available for the initiative, including the proceeds of the city’s sale of its affordable housing projects to a private developer.

Yang and Witty-Oakland said much of the administration’s focus, however, is looking at what resources may already be available in the community.

Both Chang and Fukunaga said a key element will be ensuring that different approaches are used for Oahu’s various communities rather than attempting a one-size-fits-all approach. Because of that, community leaders from each of those areas need to be part of the discussion, they said.

"You wouldn’t try to solve the homeless problem in Waikiki by moving them to another region," Fukunaga said. "We believe that solutions that are appropriate for a particular region or neighborhood in which you may have a particular homeless population are going to be most successful."

Chang said it will be important to try to incorporate as many types of solutions that address as many types of homeless issues as possible.

Connie Mitchell, executive director of the Institute for Human Services, said she also supports the housing first concept. Like Chang and Fukunaga, Mitchell said she’s hoping to see a spectrum of approaches offered.

"We think every neighborhood and every community needs to have a localized response to homelessness," Mitchell said.