HILO — Work is expected to begin on a temporary housing project to house eruption evacuees in Pahoa within the next several days.
Hawaii County Planning Director Michael Yee said the county plans to erect temporary shelters at churches and other properties in the area to relocate some evacuees from emergency shelters.
This plan would begin with Sacred Heart Church in Pahoa, where 11 temporary structures would be placed on the church’s 14 acres, Yee said.
The county hopes to work with other churches to provide additional shelter space, and additional shelters possibly would be placed at Sacred Heart Church in the future.
“The current sheltering we have now wasn’t meant to go on for months,” Yee said. “We knew we had to move them to better housing.”
The plan is made possible because of a proclamation issued by Mayor Harry Kim on Thursday that suspended several county building- and land-use laws. The proclamation, Yee said, will allow shelters that would otherwise be unpermitted structures to be erected and temporarily house evacuees.
The temporary shelters will be small, Yee said, with an estimated area of roughly 120 square feet. A number of designs for the shelters is possible, from shed-like buildings to igloo-like structures recently deployed at Honolulu homeless housing projects.
For fire safety reasons, the shelters will not be equipped with utilities such as electricity or plumbing, Yee said. However, Hope Services Hawaii will transport a mobile hygiene unit to the site from Oahu, which will provide working bathrooms and showers for the evacuees at Sacred Heart Church. Agreements also will be made with the temporary housing sites to permit evacuees access to bathroom facilities at the location, Yee said.
Yee also clarified Kim’s earlier remarks Friday, which alluded to a six-month rapid rehousing plan to relocate evacuees to a new permanent community.
“As soon as we figured out what to do with the temporary housing, Mayor Kim said ‘What next?’” Yee said.
Discussions regarding the next step of the evacuation have generated possible plans, Yee said. However, nothing is definite yet.
Kim compared a potential resettling project to a similar initiative in 1960 that created a new community for those displaced by the 1960 tsunami.
“(Mayor Kim) was trying to convey the urgency of the situation,” Yee said, adding that the temporary shelters will not be permitted to remain after the eruption ends.
For now, the temporary housing project should begin within the next several days. A memorandum of understanding between the county and Hope Services Hawaii is “probably in attorneys’ hands as we speak” Friday afternoon, Yee said.
Yee said he hopes additional churches and organizations are willing to provide space for the growing number of people who have been displaced.
“As fast as we’re moving people out, I’m worried we’ll just be replacing them with new evacuees,” Yee said.
As of 11 a.m. Friday, there were 299 evacuees at Red Cross shelters, located at the Pahoa Community Center and the Keaau Armory, according to a Red Cross representative.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com
