The City and County of Honolulu later this month is set to shut down, spruce-up, and eliminate overnight camping at two of the largest tent cities on the Wai'anae Coast.

On Sept. 28, city officials will move out all remaining tent dwellers at Ma'ili's Ulehawa Beach Park No. 2, popularly known as "7-Elevens," and conduct a week-long maintenance cleanup, after which the park will be shut down nightly between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Then, beginning Oct. 12, the city will go through the same exercise at Lualualei Beach Park No. 1 in Wai'anae, otherwise known as "Sewers."

Both operations will follow the successful "Ma'ili Beach model" of late March 2007, in which the city evacuated and cleaned the most heavily populated homeless beach park on O'ahu a month after the state opened its first-ever around-the-clock emergency homeless shelter in Wai'anae, the $6.5 million Pai'olu Kaiaulu facility.

Since that time, Ma'ili Beach Park has remained unoccupied by homeless people, a majority of whom moved into the new emergency shelter in Wai'anae. The city has conducted subsequent cleanups on the coast with similar results.

The latest park shutdowns come a month after the opening of the most ambitious and costly state-financed homeless shelter on the Wai'anae Coast — the $16.5 million Kahikolu 'Ohana Hale 'O Wai'anae facility, which officials hope will add to the options available for people displaced from beach parks.

How smoothly the process will go this time, however, is uncertain.

That's because the homeless dynamic has changed dramatically since the summer of 2006 when the Wai'anae Coast's 16 miles of homeless beach dwellers made national news, and Gov. Linda Lingle signed an emergency homeless proclamation that allowed her to fast-track Pai'olu Kaiaulu and other area shelter projects to deal with the looming crisis.

What propelled much of that urgency was the specter of hundreds of homeless children whose parents had recently taken to the beach following a downturn in affordable housing at the same time rents and home prices were skyrocketing.

In little more than one year's time, the government's concerted homeless effort virtually eliminated families with children on Wai'anae's beaches by moving them into the newly established shelter system.

But those living on the shoreline today are largely single men or women, and couples. While there was broad sympathy for parents with kids struggling on the beach, there has been less sensitivity from the public for adults in the same predicament.

Russ Saito, the state's homeless solutions coordinator, concedes that it's not possible to predict what will happen this time. But he maintains that the shelter system has been built up and modified over the past two years and can accommodate everybody on the beaches who wants to move in and begin improving their living standard.

"We expect to open both the Villages of Ma'ili and Building 36 at Kalaeloa by mid-to-late October," said Saito. "And those are both transitional facilities — transitional family with children at Villages of Ma'ili, and transitional adults (singles, couples and family without children) at Building 36."

Together, those two facilities can accommodate around 400 individuals, Saito said. Meanwhile, emergency shelters at Onelau'ena in Kalaeloa and Pai'olu in Wai'anae, which together can handle some 475 residents, will be able to take in current beach inhabitants, while former shelter occupants move up the line into the new Kahikolu transitional facility in Wai'anae, Villages of Ma'ili, or Building 36.

The unknown factor, said Saito, is how many people remaining on beaches will be willing to leave them.

"We are very soon going to find out for sure how many of those still on the beach are what we call the hard core — those who are not going to move in even though there's shelter available to them."

The problems affecting people living on the beach are complex and numerous. Some outsiders see such beach dwellers as outcasts who refuse to follow common social norms, or who have drug and alcohol problems or mental illness.

And while chronic homeless folks do in fact live on the beaches, others are just down on their luck or simply lack wherewithal.

Kehau Afong, 31, who lives at "7-Elevens" beach, likes the thought of living in a shelter and has spoken with outreach workers about the possibility. Still, she's not sure if she is eligible to get in, or how the process really works.

"Where am I going to go on the 28th?" wondered Afong, as she paused before dashing across Farrington Highway to reach the 7-Eleven store across the road for which the beach was named. "I don't know. I'd like to go into a shelter. Yeah, that would be nice. I'm just waiting. Otherwise, I'll probably look for another beach and see how long I can stay there until they kick me out."

Another issue is people's pets. Most of the people living in tents have a dog, for instance. Dogs offer companionship, protection, and serve as substitutes for children, their owners said in interviews last week.

But shelters don't allow animals. Those entering the system are expected to have dealt with their animals on their own beforehand.

Many refuse to do that. The extent to which people here love their animals was illustrated on Wednesday, when many of those living in the bush rushed headlong into a raging wildfire to rescue animals at an encampment between the Wai'anae Boat Harbor and the Wai'anae High School.

They needed their dogs, they later said.

The sentiment is echoed throughout the area.

Clarence Patton and Mary Carreira can remain at "7-Elevens " beach until the planned closure, living as they have for months with their 15-year-old Chihuahua named Nani in a dilapidated Dodge van with a blown engine. The dog has cancer and a prognosis of five months to live.

Still, for them, a shelter is out of the question.

"I can't go into the shelter because I have a pet," said Carreira, lifting Nani from the pavement and giving her a smile. "That's my baby. That's the only baby I've got. I've raised her from a puppy."

Carreira thinks a homeless pet shelter is an idea whose time has come.

Patton — a rugged man who looks to be in his late 50s but who was actually born in 1927 and fought in Saipan in World War II — agrees. Until a homeless pet shelter becomes a reality, the two will look for another beach to call home.

Patton and Carreira may not be alone in that resolve.

But Wade "Pastor Boo" Soares believes miracles can and do happen. Soares heads up Kahikolu 'Ohana Hale 'O Wai'anae, the 72-unit, multi-faceted transitional and affordable rental shelter that recently opened in Wai'anae.

The unique public, private and nonprofit facility was built with $13.5 million in state grants and $3 million from the Weinberg Foundation, and is operated by the Hawai'i Coalition of Christian Churches. Among other things, the shelter is building numerous wage-paying work programs, such as a commercial kitchen to prepare food for lunch wagons operated by residents.

Soares runs the shelter with a strict but loving hand. Already in the month the facility has been in operation, he has had to escort a handful of residents off the premises — two mothers with children, and one single man. But the door never slams shut. The single man is back and doing extraordinarily well, said Soares.

"If they are not abiding by the structure and the guidelines that we have here, then we have to ask them to leave," he said. "It's based on zero tolerance of alcohol and drugs and violence — and even then there is some grace. These guys are coming in with a lot of issues. I can't expect them to be angels."

Meanwhile, Soares sees miracles in people like Naomi McDaniel, who seemed a hopeless cause only four years ago. The Kaua'i woman lost her three children because of drug addiction, and eventually ended up homeless and living at Ma'ili Beach Park.

But something clicked. McDaniel became determined to account for the "bad decisions" she'd made. She changed her thinking. She successfully fought to get her kids back. She moved into Pai'olu emergency shelter after Ma'ili Beach shut down. Fourteen months after completing that program, McDaniel has graduated to the transitional shelter at Kahikolu.

"The rules were tough," said McDaniel, 34, whose goal now is to get her commercial drivers license. "It was no joy ride. But I had to put my pride down. Now, I'm moving forward. Every day I'm open to any upward changes that come my way.

"Because I know when I get on my feet and leave this place — there will be no coming back."