Honolulu City Council members, saying they are frustrated that Oahu’s homeless situation has not eased in recent months, have introduced seven resolutions hoping to make a difference.

Members of the Council Budget Committee on Wednesday demanded to know why Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s administration has yet to spend more of about $140 million the Council has appropriated for homeless and affordable-housing initiatives.

Resolution 15-295, introduced by Council members Joey Manahan and Ernie Martin, urges the administration “to immediately fund and implement services and permanent housing solutions for homeless individuals and families.” It advanced out of the Budget Committee on Wednesday.

Manahan said recent sweeps in Kakaako have shifted more homeless to Iwilei and Kalihi.

“When we did the sit-lie and stored property ordinances, (the idea) was to have some kind of shelters, some kind of facilities, some kind of provisions for the folks who were … going to (be) moved around,” Manahan said. “The concern is we’re not providing for those folks, we’re just sweeping them around as we did in Kakaako.”

For about a month ending in mid-October, the city used sidewalk enforcement laws to clear about 300 people living in Kakaako Makai. State homeless coordinator Scott Morishige said at least 158 people were placed in permanent or temporary shelters.

Gary Nakata, city community services director, said the city worked closely with the state to ensure there was sufficient shelter space as the city conducted its sidewalk enforcement actions block by block through Kakaako.

“Service providers have been working very, very diligently since August to ensure that a number of these people have options,” he said.

Manahan said that if the city intends to enforce sidewalk laws in other parts of Oahu, “shouldn’t we be providing adequate shelter space and services for the additional sweeps? Because clearly we don’t have enough housing up, enough shelter, for everybody.”

Nakata said giving options to those being displaced is a priority. The Hale Mauliola project, for instance, is purposely being developed with “low barriers” for individuals to enter, he said.

“We do provide options to these individuals, but we can’t force them into the shelters, either,” he said.

Urging the Caldwell administration to look into additional hygiene centers and mobile health centers was among six other homeless-related resolutions that cleared the Council Public Health, Safety and Welfare Committee on Tuesday.

Resolution 15-268, introduced by Manahan and Martin, urges the administration to study and report back on the feasibility of establishing a hygiene center in Mapunapuna near a significant homeless population.

Such centers typically contain public restrooms, showers and laundry facilities, much like the Pauahi Hale facility in Chinatown operated by Mental Health Kokua for the city.

Manahan said he hopes the administration will learn from that project, as well as the experiences of those who operate hygiene centers on the mainland such as the Urban Rest Stop in Seattle.

Councilman Trevor Ozawa said he’d like to see hygiene centers established in other parts of the island.

The resolution comes on the heels of an op-ed piece by Martin in Sunday’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser in which he proposed creation of safe zones to accommodate the homeless in various parts of the island.

Manahan also introduced Resolution 15-282, calling on the administration to look further into the idea of creating a fleet of “ambu-buses,” standard city buses retrofitted to provide mobile health services to the homeless.

Besides improving the health of the homeless, mobile health centers could reduce the number of ambulance pickups by city paramedics and unnecessary visits to the island’s overburdened hospital emergency rooms, Manahan said. The city could receive grant funding for ambu-buses, he said.

Nakata said the administration will look at both ideas.

The other measures approved by the Public Health Committee on Tuesday are:

» Resolution 15-281, introduced by Manahan, asking for a performance audit of the city’s Section 8 rental assistance program. Nakata said he welcomed the audit but that he stands by the work of the division that administers the program.

» Resolution 15-283, introduced by Councilman Brandon Elefante, urging the administration to speed up implementation of Housing First-type programs to help the chronically homeless, those who have been without a roof the longest.

» Resolution 15-284, also introduced by Elefante, urging the state Legislature to provide the funding to repair and maintain vacant public housing units that can be used to help house families during the affordable-housing crunch.

» Resolution 15-285, introduced by Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi, urging the administration to step up enforcement of the city’s sidewalk nuisance law in various parts of urban Honolulu.