Plans for Mental Health Kokua to relocate its Safe Haven operations to the city-owned Pauahi Hale have been delayed by at least six months due to a leaky roof and a call for additional improvements by federal officials.

Original plans called for Safe Haven’s 25 beds now at the Edwin Thomas Building, near Fort Street Mall, to be relocated by this June to Pauahi Hale at 126 Pauahi St.

Mental Health Kokua programs help those recovering from serious mental illnesses, and its Safe Haven program, specifically, has provided shelter and services for single, homeless adults with mental illnesses.

But the move to Pauahi Hale has been delayed until January, said Greg Payton, Mental Health Kokua chief executive. The time will allow for expansion of Pauahi Hale’s ground floor community kitchen and dining room, roof repairs, and other, “cosmetic” improvements — such as giving the tenant rooms fresh coats of paint, he said.

The leaking roof caused damage to several rooms “and we wanted to clean that up,” Payton said. Additionally, Mental Health Kokua is receiving funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and “HUD wanted our facility (at Pauahi Hale) to be of the same level of standard as our current facility,” Payton said.

The kitchen will be expanded and a space will be carved out for educational training groups.

“We’re working on all our permitting and the architect bid went out,” Payton said. “Our ambitious schedule is to try to get it all done and get into the building in January 2016.”

About $900,000 in unspent, city-sponsored HUD Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition Act money is being used to make the improvements, Payton said.

The agreement reached between the city and Mental Health Kokua last September also called for the nonprofit to set up a community shower and restroom facility that would be open to the public on the ground floor of the four-story Pauahi Hale from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.

That facility opened in February, although it, too, ran into a glitch that caused it to be closed for about three weeks earlier this summer.

Speculation that the bathrooms were vandalized is not true, Payton said. Flooring that was installed “started to come up,” requiring it to be reset by a construction company.

“It just didn’t seal properly,” he said.

The do-over didn’t cost Mental Health Kokua or the city additional money since it was under warranty.

About 70 people from outside Hale Pauahi use the facility daily, Payton said. Among them, he said, are about 20 homeless people who live nearby and shower early each morning before going to work.

The facility is monitored by security to deter illegal activity, he said.

The administration of Mayor Kirk Caldwell struck the five-year deal to have Mental Health Kokua manage Pauahi Hale last year as part of its plan to battle homelessness in the area. But Payton said the organization is only running Safe Haven out of Pauahi Hale as a two-year pilot program as a concession to community leaders.

“We wanted to be respectful with the local merchants and we worked together with the Chinatown Community Association and the (Downtown) Neighborhood Board,” he said. “And we’ll see what happens after two years.”

Mental Health Kokua has been trying to find a permanent replacement for its Thomas Building location for several years and is on a month-to-month lease with the South Beretania Street building’s owner, Housing Solutions Inc., Payton said.

City Councilwoman Carol Fukunaga, who represents the area and helped secure funding for walk-in support services at the renovated Pauahi Hale, voiced “frustration and dismay at the length of time it’s taken for city facilities to be renovated to support the relocation.”

Fukunaga said she and other area politicians, including state Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland (D, Downtown-Nuuanu-Liliha) and Rep. Karl Rhoads (D, Downtown-Iwilei-Kalihi), came to an agreement with community leaders, homeless providers and city agencies that Pauahi Hale was the most ideal site and “would bring the greatest amount of relief to businesses and organizations in Chinatown.”

Gary Nakata, city community services director, said the Caldwell administration is pleased with the direction of the project. City officials are especially happy that walk-in treatment services are to be offered by Mental Health Kokua out of Pauahi Hale.

“We’re hoping it can be a place where people can feel normal again,” Nakata said.

Longtime Pauahi Hale resident Richard Elstner said Mental Health Kokua has done an OK job since taking over management of the building.

“Recently, they’ve been trying to do some things,” he said.

House rules were implemented recently but “they haven’t been going as fast as I want” in kicking out drug dealers and chronic drug users from the building, Elstner said. He’s also waiting for the promised renovations to take place, he said.