City Council Chairman Ernie Martin wants to build permanent and temporary housing for the homeless by diverting $32 million from the $132 million pot that Mayor Kirk Caldwell set aside for road repaving.

The money would be in addition to about $18.9 million already being set aside from the city’s Affordable Housing Fund for the homeless and others in need of shelter, Martin said Thursday.

Martin said language in his bill allows the $32 million to be used for a homeless relocation initiative aimed at acquiring, developing or renovating facilities for homeless families and individuals. It gives the administration the option of using the funds for emergency, transitional or permanent housing for the homeless.

City Managing Director Ember Shinn said the administration supports more funding for homelessness programs but doesn’t like diverting money from road repaving.

Martin’s plan will be taken up when the Council takes final votes on the city operating and capital improvement budgets Wednesday at Mission Memorial Auditorium, next to Honolulu Hale.

Martin appears to be staking out a compromise position to end a skirmish that he and Council Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi have had with Caldwell on how best to tackle the homeless problem.

Caldwell’s budget submittal to the Council in March called for $18.9 million to be used for a Housing First program that prioritizes giving shelter to homeless individuals and families before addressing other needs often associated with homelessness, such as drug addiction, mental illness or joblessness.

But Martin and Kobayashi, backed by other Council members, balked at investing that big an amount into Housing First, which tends to help chronic individuals rather than families on the streets.

"The Council has never been not supportive of Housing First,"Martin said. "For myself, I just felt uncomfortable committing all those resources to this one particular activity for this one population."

Administration officials countered that recent statistics showed clearly that the number of chronically homeless individuals far exceeds that of unsheltered couples or families.

The Budget Committee in recent weeks has reduced the amount reserved for Housing First down to only $8.2 million. The rest of the money has been diverted to projects addressing other housing areas including $4.2 million for a Family Justice Center in Makiki, $4 million for homeless units in Waikiki, $1 million for an affordable-housing project incorporating the Iwilei transit station that is to be done jointly with the state, and $1 million for a live-work affordable-housing project for artists in Kakaako with the nonprofit Pa’i Foundation.

Martin said that the additional $32 million in housing funding he’s proposing would not come with any provisos barring the administration from using a portion for Housing First, but that it does contain language requiring that priority be given to projects that help "families with children."

The administration should have the flexibility to decide how the money is spent.

"We’re just the policymakers," he said. "Ultimately the administration has their ears to the ground, and they can best determine how those funds can be expended."

Shinn, in a statement late Thursday, said while the administration appreciates that the Council is looking at more funding for homelessness programs, any money should not be at the expense of road repaving and instead come from the Affordable Housing Fund.

She also noted that the administration had initially proposed $3 million from the operating budget for housing subsidies, administrative services and other costs tied to Housing First and that the Budget Committee had trimmed a portion of that money.

"General obligation bonds to buy housing units won’t pay for the supportive services that are a critical component of any Housing First program and can’t be used for administrative services so that the city can manage the programs responsibly and effectively,"Shinn said. "Those two items need to be addressed in the chair’s proposal."

Martin said he believes $100 million is sufficient to continue the city’s street rehabilitation program. The administration initially proposed $140 million for repaving and resurfacing next year.