A little can go a long way — and a long way is certainly the hope as a dozen dome shelters for homeless families prepare to open in Kaneohe. Called “The Shelter,” the enclave will use two fiberglass domes for six full restrooms and about nine others as transitional shelters for homeless women and children. Operated by the First Assembly of God Pentecostal church on one of its six Oahu campuses, the project was in response to the mayor’s 2015 call for the faith community to help with homelessness.

These domes harken to another pop-up shelter project: in Pahoa, where 20 “tiny houses” were erected in less than a month this summer to meet the emergency needs of people displaced by the Kilauea lava flows. More than 700 homes were destroyed or rendered unhabitable earlier this year.

A community-wide effort, the Sacred Heart Shelter in Pahoa uses 120-square-foot micro-houses on land owned by the Roman Catholic Church Diocese of Honolulu and leased to the nonprofit Hope Services Hawaii. Also key to getting the project up within a mere month: working with Hawaii County officials to get an emergency proclamation that allowed it to move ahead without normal building requirements and red tape.

In The Shelter’s case, it took two years to come to fruition, aided by design firm G70 to navigate Oahu’s zoning and permitting process. Living at the domes is meant to be temporary, of course, while awaiting permanent rentals. But for the time being, it’ll be a roof over the heads of some families and children — better than living on the streets under tarps.

These two initiatives involving faith agencies show, at the very least, creative ways forward to tackle homelessness. Leaders in the state and counties should be following suit, looking for strips of vacant land to do what these nonprofits have stepped up to do.