Saying he "jumped the gun" in announcing that no more camping permits would be issued at Nanakuli Beach Park, city Parks and Recreation Director Les Chang apologized yesterday for any misunderstanding and inconvenience it may have caused.

"There was no intent to chase the homeless out," Chang said. "The intent was concern for someone getting a camping permit and going down there with expectations that weren't going to be met.

"This is solely something I did on my own."

Chang said rules stipulate that camping permits are issued once a week and are good for five days between Friday and Tuesday. Wednesdays and Thursdays are no-camping days when workers can maintain campsites, he said.

"To be real honest, we have not been enforcing that," he said. "But that is the rule. Part of the plan we are working on is about how to address that."

Among those who would be directly affected by any permitting change is Bert Bustamante, who serves as spokesman for a homeless family compound in the Nanakuli Beach Park camping area.

Bustamante doesn't fit the negative stereotypes about homeless people. He says he doesn't drink or do drugs, and he's got a job at Chili's in Kapolei. The other three adult family members at his campsite are all employed.

For the past several months, he and his family have lived at the campsite, for which Bustamante, 48, dutifully acquires a new permit every week.

But when his family went to pick up the new permit on Friday, they were told they've been suspended.

Bustamante's family of 16 — 12 children and four adults — faced the grim prospect of having no place to go.

"I have no clue what's going on," Bustamante said yesterday as he held a fistful of his previous camping permits.

Bustamante said his family had been living in a home owned by his aunt. But when she sold the place, they ended up camping at the park.

"It's not her fault," Bustamante said. "But if we leave here, we have no place to go. I'm just doing the best I can out of life."

Bustamante said the camp has about 75 to 100 residents who follow the rules, don't cause trouble and never fail to get weekly permits.

Bustamante's site, as are most of the other 11 campsites at the park, was neat and tidy yesterday.

But the homeless campers get lumped in with loud weekend revelers and troublemakers who hang out at the park at the far end of the campsite, he said.

He has heard that residents across Farrington Highway blame the campers for area problems.

But Elroy Wong, who has lived across from the campsite all his life, said he's never had any problem with the homeless camped at the park.

"They're just homeless people," Wong said. "I feel bad for them.

"Where else are they going to go?

"The cost of living is so high right now in Hawai'i, there could be more homeless."

Wong's wife, Dale, said the homeless problem has grown much worse in the past couple of years. But she said her family has not had any trouble with people who stay at the camp.

The issue of no camping permits popped up without warning late last week, said Jo Jordan, who heads the parks committee for the Wai'anae Coast Neighborhood Board.

"No one said boo to me about it," Jordan said yesterday.

She repeated concerns of Bustamante and others who say the city closed Ala Moana Beach Park shortly before its recent Centennial Celebration, forcing homeless people to leave that park.

She said she wondered if the city had something similar in mind with the Nanakuli Beach Park campsite since there's an upcoming Father's Day regatta planned at the park.

But Chang insisted that the no-permit decision had nothing to do with any events planned for the area, and that there are no plans to move the homeless out of Nanakuli Beach Park.

"I was just trying to avoid having someone with expectations of going there to do recreational camping, and we would not be able to meet their expectations," he said.

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.