State officials spent $180,000 in manpower and an additional $20,000 in disposal fees to clear 90 homeless people and more than 60 truckloads of their belongings from the H-1 freeway viaduct in August through September.

And state officials plan to do it again every six months, using money that comes directly from Hawaii drivers.

"There’s a certain amount of lunacy to spending $400,000 here twice a year," said state Rep. Tom Brower (D, Waikiki-Ala Moana), who worries about Oahu’s homeless problem as chairman of the House Tourism Committee. "If we’re going to spend $400,000 a year, how can we better use that money to solve homelessness?"

Brower’s question is being discussed at various city, state and community levels, said Marc Alexander, Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s homeless coordinator.

"We have had ongoing discussions with various agencies and service providers about the best ways to reach out to those who are homeless and offer them services, and how to keep public areas available and safe to the public," Alexander said. "We are finding that an effective approach is similar to what we have done in Kakaako: regular outreach, regular cleaning and involvement of the community."

From Aug. 22 to Sept. 2, the state Department of Public Safety provided 31 prisoners to clean out the area under the H-1 viaduct, which had become home to a warren of homeless encampments.

The prisoners earned 25 cents per hour for eight hours a day, said Toni Schwartz, spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Safety.

Nineteen sheriff’s deputies also provided security over a cleanup that saw homeless people start three fires and crews discover suspected crystal methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia.

The state Department of Transportation also provided about 60 landscaping workers.

The entire $200,000 cost for manpower and disposal "comes directly from your vehicle weight tax, the gas tax, rental surcharge and vehicle registration," said DOT spokesman Dan Meisenzahl. "Except for the gas tax, all of those recently went up."

With concerns over violence and drug dealing, the DOT needs to constantly clear the viaduct of homeless encampments "because our top priority is safety," Meisenzahl said. "The second (objective) is preservation of our facilities. When you have campfires underneath fuel lines below the viaduct, that’s a problem.

"Of course, we’d love it if there were no homeless so that money could go elsewhere," Meisenzahl said. "While $400,000 is a drop in the bucket, it’s money we’d love to have to use for other things."

Brandon Cayetano supports the cost of the cleanup.

He’s the owner of the nearby Hawaii All-Star Paintball Games, whose 6-acre site inherited several homeless people who were pushed out of the viaduct, requiring him to now spend money patrolling paintball fields for homeless people.

"Even if I wasn’t an adjacent neighbor, I’d support the cleanup," Cayetano said. "It’s an eyesore. If you’re stopped on the Nimitz and you look over the side of the bridge, all you see is camps."

But while transportation and public safety officials prepare to return to the H-1 viaduct next year, Brower believes state officials should create "safe zones" for homeless people somewhere on Oahu instead of constantly chasing homeless people out of beaches, parks and sidewalks and bearing the cost of cleaning up after them.

"Even if you spend $200,000 on a cleanup, within a matter of days it looks just like it did before," Brower said. "It is viable that we spend money to clean up the homeless, whether it’s under an overpass or on a city street. But if we’re going to spend $400,000 a year on just one area, isn’t there a better way?"