Among all the priorities that will weigh down lawmakers when they convene on Wednesday, few have the urgency of narrowing the gap between the demand for affordable housing and the state’s paltry supply.

Lots of people have talked about strategies for doing this more cheaply and efficiently than in the past. But 2015 must be the year when such ideas move off the meeting agenda sheets and into construction contracts.

And there’s hope that the state is finally coming to terms with the problem by offering proposals that are scalable to meet the immense need.

The proposal that made the biggest splash last week was an announcement from the Hawaii Public Housing Authority of plans to repurpose the area surrounding the agency’s current office in Palama for low-income units. This is encouraging: Nothing would be a more appropriate use of the land.

Hakim Ouansafi, HPHA’s executive director, said the authority is seeking a developer who can devise a creative way to make the most of the property. The offices would move to the first couple of floors, but the rest of the complex of six or seven stories would provide units for mixed-income renters above that. Mixed uses for the 6-acre parcel at the corner of North School Street and Lanakila Street also will be contemplated.

Among the concepts that have caught officials’ attention is the use of steel shipping containers that can be stacked and arranged in surprisingly attractive ways. Other options rightfully put on the planning table include prefabricated "micro-units" and other unconven- tional modular designs.

There’s more to come here: The state plans to add 400 units to the public housing at nearby The Towers at Kuhio Park, and in November HPHA tapped three firms as master developers to convert Mayor Wright Homes into another mixed-income and mixed-use housing complex.

Of course, the success of this approach lies in the execution. These apartments will have to attract both the needier renters and those a few notches up the income scale. Micro-units are all the rage in publicly subsidized housing developments these days, but many Hawaii families are more macro in size. The inventory has to fit the population.

However, few dispute the general approach as being the superior way to create a more diverse and stable community. Uniformly low-income developments too often lapse into ghetto enclaves. People who are poor shouldn’t be shunted off to the margins, out of the way. Strict rules governing activities and the maintenance of the units must be enforced, but everyone deserves accommodations that are "decent, safe and sanitary," according to often-cited federal regulations.

Add "attractive" to that list, and the result is the start of a nice neighborhood.

The fact that security and a modicum of comfort and convenience are human essentials is also plainly seen in the initial results of Hono-lulu’s Housing First initiative. Through a collaborative effort of nonprofit service providers and enabled by city and federal funds, the first 63 homeless clients who had been living on the streets of Waikiki have been sheltered or housed.

Allison Schaefers, who covers Waikiki and tourism for the Star-Advertiser, took a reading of the initial effects, and the anecdotal feedback shows the potential improvement this program could have — on the community as a whole, but especially on the lives of these vulnerable people.

The results are inspirational. Formerly homeless people reported feeling hopeful and optimistic for the first time in many years, once presented with their own place.

There’s also a budgetary advantage to consider. That theory, which has been borne out in many cities where it’s been implemented, is that the investment in covering most costs of rent for this population is less than what government ends up spending on emergency services and other interventions, as the homeless cycle in and out of criminal justice and health institutions because of the strain of being houseless.

Housing First is about bundling stable housing with the social services that people need to be more self-sufficient and, ultimately, productive.

But it mainly asserts that it’s housing that should come first, that people are better able to get back on their feet when they have a place to stand, sit and sleep in peace.

All of these initiatives to strengthen Hawaii’s continuum of housing services — including emergency shelters, publicly funded apartments to rentals that the state’s workforce can afford — also demonstrate another principle: These efforts are most effective when there’s coordination among all parts of the social services network.

These are problems that can be solved, or at least greatly reduced, when all the players pull together. Going forward, that’s the key to success.