Sunday night’s upcoming, indefinite closure of Kakaako Waterfront Park and its adjacent state parks because of lawless homeless activity is helping to drive new interest in government- sanctioned “safe zones” for homeless encampments across Oahu.

Councilman Ernie Martin has introduced Bill 87 — scheduled for first reading on Wednesday — which would expand the city’s so-called “sit-lie ban” across the entire island — restricting sitting or lying on public sidewalks. At the same time, Martin has introduced Resolution 17-277, which calls for the creation of safe zones to house homeless people who would be displaced by an islandwide sit-lie ban.

“It would be hard to argue we’re going to impose an island sit-lie measure and not have an alternative for this population,” Martin said. “If you’re going to pass sit-lie measures without (safe zones), we’re wasting our time.”

The Council on Wednesday is scheduled to hear two other homeless-related bills. Bill 83, introduced by Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi, would outlaw sitting or lying on a city sidewalk within 800 feet of a school or public library. Bill 88, also by Martin, would expand sit-lie to more portions of Iwilei along Pacific Street.

State Reps. John Mizuno and Tom Brower have been talking about safe zones in the state Legislature for years, and several Council members have more recently seen them in action in Seattle, which embraces government-sanctioned tent cities that are euphemistically called many names on the mainland, including “safe zones,” “sanctioned encampments” and “pop-up shelters.”

But with the impending closure of Kakaako Waterfront, Gateway and Kewalo Basin parks, beginning at 10 p.m. Sunday, Martin believes the time is right to create Oahu’s first safe zones for some of the island’s nearly 5,000 homeless people, the highest per capita homeless rate in the nation.

“Frankly, I’m surprised that it’s taken this long for any member of the Council to introduce the bill that I’ve introduced,” Martin said.

Ever since the city imposed Oahu’s first sit-lie ban in Waikiki in 2014, Martin said, everyone anticipated that many of Waikiki’s homeless would simply migrate into someone else’s neighborhood.

“We knew there would be a spillover effect, and now each of the (Council) members (is) struggling with respect to that spillover in their individual districts,” Martin said. “That has surely occurred in Kaka­ako.”

Still, Martin called sit-lie “appropriate. The problem had gotten to a point that it was out of control. It was a measure that was unfortunate but necessary.”

Martin hopes that Council members will help their communities figure out what kind of safe zone works best for their specific homeless populations — and they each have $2 million worth of homeless-related funds to use, he said.

“What may work in one community may not work in another,” Martin said. “Everybody needs to account for their own. Otherwise we’re creating a ghetto, and that would be a serious mistake.”

Even Councilwoman Kymberly Pine — who opposed safe zones while in the state Legislature and fought against sit-lie expansion on the Council — has had a change of heart.

“I have changed my mind,” Pine said. “I’ve just been analyzing everything that leaders have tried. I am acknowledging that everything that we have tried is not even putting a dent into solving the problem.”

Still, Pine will support an islandwide sit-lie ban only if there is a place for homeless people to go, such as safe zones with rules, sanitation and help to get the occupants into permanent housing.

“I was the leading opponent of safe zones in the Legislature, but I realized that when you have a situation like sit-lie that’s causing all this chaos and causing problems for whoever in the next zone over, we are creating more problems,” Pine said. “We cannot have mass chaos. But if you’ve got government helping them with their mental issues, their poverty issues, you’re creating a place where they can at least take a breather and start solving their own problems.”

Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s administration opposes Councilman Ernie Martin’s proposal for an islandwide sit-lie ban, as well as Martin’s resolution calling for city-sanctioned tent cities, or safe zones.

“The intent of the bill (83) is a good one, and the administration looks forward to having that discussion,” Caldwell spokesman Andrew Pereira said.

Marc Alexander, executive director of the city’s Office of Housing, however, said safe zones are opposed by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homeless and the National Alliance to End Homelessness because they don’t work. Alexander said they’re also not cost-effective and are “merely an excuse to hide the homeless and move the problem out of the public sphere as quickly as possible and not really help the homeless.”

Hawaii island’s new Camp Kikaha safe zone outside of the Old Kona Airport costs $23,000 per month for 28 people, not including costs for land and social service workers, Alexander said.

Talk of a government- sanctioned safe zone resurrects memories of the city’s failed attempt to create a tent city in Aala Park between 1990 and 1993, which ended in failure after a night of “wilding” that included an attempted murder and a trail of crime scenes.

Nick Kacprowski, an attorney with the Honolulu law firm of Alston Hunt Floyd & Ing, which has challenged the city’s homeless sweeps in court, said city officials need to be careful where they create safe zones in order to be legal.

“If you don’t have enough of them (for homeless people displaced by an islandwide sit-lie ban) and they’re not close to town, it really does no good,” Kacprowski said. “If that’s your safe zone, then it won’t pass a challenge. The big problem from the perspective of the Constitution is having a sit-lie ban where you have nowhere for them to go.”

Overall, Kacprowski remains critical of the city’s initial sit-lie ban in Waikiki and subsequent efforts to expand it across Oahu.

“Sit-lie doesn’t work at all,” he said. “Moving people around and taking their property doesn’t solve the homeless problem.”