Mayor Kirk Caldwell is now looking at putting up modular or container-style transitional shelter units at Sand Island for between 75 and 100 of Honolulu’s chronically homeless.

At a news briefing Tuesday, Caldwell is scheduled to provide details on the plan, which is aimed at helping those who fall in the most severe homeless category.

"We’re looking at Sand Island as a prototype that we could do in other parts of our community," Caldwell said Monday.

The new plan calls for units to be 40 or 53 square feet in size, or three or four units per 8-foot by 20-foot container.

"They’ll have a place they can lock and call their own," he said.

Showers and other bathroom facilities will be housed separately. There will also be a communal dining facility where people can gather to eat food that would be prepared elsewhere and brought in.

An administrative/intake office would also be where people can get support services geared toward the homeless.

None of the living units will have plumbing or electricity, but will carry battery operated lights, said Sandy Pfund, head of the city Office of Strategic Development.

The new plan formally scraps a proposal announced by the administration last September to put up a temporary tent-based transitional center on the same parcel for those defined as chronically homeless.

That plan ran into opposition from area businesses, community leaders and homeless advocates. It also ran into a lengthy delay when the city was pressed to check if there was soil contamination on the state-owned land that the city was to secure through a $1 a year, three-year lease.

The mayor said he’s hopeful the new plan will get a better reception because it better reflects what the homeless and the community would prefer.

"It’s much more user-friendly" than the camp plan originally proposed, he said.

"People will move voluntarily if it’s a nice place to go," Caldwell said. "So it’s not moving their tent and put it into another place, it’s actually moving into a more solid structure, with restrooms and all of those things for them to use (separately) in a communitylike setting. But you’ll have a place where you can close the door, lock it, and your stuff is OK, and you’re OK. That’s very different than a tent that you can’t lock, (that) can leak or blow over."

The city is calling for vendors of modular or container-style units to submit proposals for the structures to be used at the location.

A second request for proposals focuses on managing operations.

The first part is expected to cost about $500,000, which would come out of the $32 million homeless/affordable housing contribution earmarked by the City Council. Operations are anticipated to cost between $750,000 and $800,000 annually.

Pfund said she anticipates the facility operating by early fall.

The new plan for Sand Island is similar to a proposal for several modular or container style units in Waianae, except the planned three units will each be about 400 to 500 square feet and geared toward families.

Gary Nakata, the city’s acting community services director, said he expects those staying at the shelter to stay about 60 days, with the goal of moving into more permanent housing. But some people may take longer to get to a better position, "something more permanent, something more supportive," he said. "It’s a portal to leave homelessness. The last thing we want … is for it to be a portal back to homelessness. That’s not what we want to do."

Jun Yang, the city’s homeless services coordinator, said the facility will remove many of the traditional barriers that prevent the homeless from entering shelters such as policies that ban pets and other house rules. That reflects a Housing First model where what’s happening behind a person’s unit is their responsibility.

Council Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi said she supports housing initiatives for the homeless and said the Sand Island plan appears to be what the Council was hoping for when it appropriated $32 million last year to aid the homeless.

"I’m in favor of low-income housing wherever, but the community has to accept it," she said. "That’s always been the hard part."

The Sand Island and Waianae modular and container-unit housing plans are being announced a day ahead of Wednesday’s Council meeting, when Kobayashi and her colleagues are taking up six bills that either expand the city’s sit-lie ordinance or place a harder burden on the homeless in some other way such as banning camping along stream beds, including Kapalama Canal.

Caldwell, an early supporter of a sit-lie ban in Waikiki and then about a dozen other business districts, last month vetoed Bill 6 expanding the prohibition to a number of other neighborhoods. City attorneys have warned the bill could be unconstitutional, noting that it bans lying or sitting in sidewalk areas that are not affecting the flow of pedestrian traffic into commercial or business areas.

An override of Caldwell’s veto of Bill 6 is on Wednesday’s agenda. Council members are also looking at five related bills that would curb where people can sit or lie down.

While supporters of sit-lie restrictions say they’re necessary to keep sidewalks clear for pedestrians and the free flow of commerce, opponents say they move the homeless into other neighborhoods while criminalizing people for not having a roof over their heads.

Caldwell said Monday that the next step in addressing homelessness "is not to pass more sit-lie bills pushing people all over the island," Caldwell said. "It’s getting people into housing."