Creating the housing units for Oahu’s homeless families takes money and real estate, which is a tall order for the city to fill. Creating the community bonds that will make it successful is the really high hurdle, however.

That’s been the experience for Kauhale Kamaile, Waianae’s year-old complex of 16 modular units for the formerly homeless with children enrolled in area schools.

Even though it’s now plain that the attractive landscaped cluster of small houses was a vast improvement over the once-weedy lot it occupies, at the outset the neighbors were not so sure, said Marc Alexander, director of the city’s Office of Housing. That was not unusual.

“The pushback we get from neighbors is strong,” Alexander added, pointing to the city’s other properties converted to homeless housing — up the street on Halona Road, townside on Piikoi and Beretania streets and on Ena Road.

The administration sees the result as completely worth the effort, though. The city Department of Land Management is looking to replicate the model — pre-assembled units that can be stacked and later moved — on a site in Ewa.

Finding partners to offer support in winning over the neighbors is essential, Alexander said. A Lutheran church adjacent to Kauhale Kamaile put out the welcome mat for the new arrivals, he added, as did the Waikiki Neighborhood Board for Ena Road.

“The big lesson we learned is, ‘Engage the community early, early, early — and often, often, often,” Alexander said.