In recent months, amid a series of homeless encampment sweeps in the Honolulu area, St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church in the Kalihi Palama neighborhood opened its doors to about a dozen people in need of temporary shelter.

The church’s pastor, David Gierlach, and several other Episcopal pastors belonging to an informal group called the “Jubilee Committee” — also nicknamed the “Troublemakers’ Club,” Gierlach says with a grin — is now urging the Episcopal Diocese of Honolulu to encourage each of its 37 parishes statewide to take in at least one homeless family or provide another kind of help.

The committee is asking for a resolution on the matter to be heard at the annual Episcopal diocese governing convention, which is set for Oct. 23 and 24 at ‘Iolani School.

Despite ongoing city and state efforts to provide emergency housing, Gierlach said, there’s clearly not enough shelter for the families that have been swept from Waikiki, Chinatown and most recently Kakaako.

St. Elizabeth’s first invited a family to live in the church’s community hall years ago, and it allows several homeless individuals to camp out in a carport and garden. With the recent influx of homeless into the area, there are up to 10 or 12 now staying on church grounds.

Included in that group is a couple expecting a baby. The pair is living in a converted shipping container, a demonstration model brought in by Faith Action for Community Equity (FACE) in February to show how a container could be transformed into an emergency shelter for $11,000. The container has no electricity or plumbing.

Options the Jubilee Committee is proposing for churches include pitching in to place a converted container on church grounds; designating a living space within church facilities for homeless people; allowing people to pitch a tent or at least park their vehicle safely on the grounds; and use of restroom facilities.

If nothing else, Gierlach said, a church could help a family with a shallow subsidy of $200 to $300 a month for six to 12 months. “There are a lot of folks who are just that short of making the monthly rent,” he said.

“Too often the church’s default answer is no. It needs to become yes,” Gierlach said. “This is what the church ought to be doing.” In response to fears about liability, he said, “We all have insurance; that’s why we have it.”

Gierlach described the homeless guests at St. Elizabeth’s as “very respectful and wanting to give back and help clean up.” He added, “It’s been fine.”

Another member of the Jubilee Committee, Kahu Kaleo Patterson, heads four churches that provide occasional shelter and contribute to outreach ministries that assist the homeless population in West Oahu. He is regional priest of St. John the Baptist, St. Stephen’s, St. Timothy’s and St. Nicholas Episcopal churches.

Regarding the committee’s proposed resolution, he said, “I think people are going to be concerned about liability. But I think there’s going to be a big push to open the doors and at least take in one family, and it’s going to depend on where the church is located, what their setup is, whether they have showers or bathrooms.”

Patterson said during his 20-plus years in the ministry, the topic of sheltering the homeless has not been discussed in depth among church leaders. However, he said, when he was at Kaumakapili Church in Kalihi-Palama in the 1990s, “we housed families for months at a time with discretion.” And on Kauai, during Hurricane Iniki, “church councils look(ed) the other way” when clergy allowed the homeless to sleep on the property.

“I believe the people in the pews are … compassionate but need to be given permission by the hierarchy of the church, and (then) they will begin to address this with great fervor and commitment and creativity,” Patterson said.

The Rev. Gregory Johnson of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, who also belongs to the Jubilee Committee, said his Moiliili church offers shelter and other services to homeless people who are “part of our family of faith.”

Johnson said, “I would encourage other communities to start with a manageable goal and work from there. The programs or services a community offers need to be grounded in reason and not just good intention. No single community, including the government, can do it all.”