It's bad enough to turn away people when there's "no room at the inn." It's worse when there are vacancies and homeless people are sent packing anyway.

That, however, is the muddled logic being applied at the Next Step shelter in Kaka'ako.

State officials stopped admitting new people at the shelter in September, except in "emergency cases." It is turning people away almost nightly, even though it has room for about 160 people, because officials want to ease out of a facility with an uncertain future.

But one has to wonder: Isn't homelessness always an emergency?

Setting aside that nonsensical approach, there's no real reason to shutter a facility that's in such demand when there isn't even an imminent deadline to clear out.

Next Step was opened two years ago in a warehouse slated for demolition to make way for a new Office of Hawaiian Affairs headquarters. Officials planned to remain there only for six months, but that tenure stretched out when other accommodations and transitional housing proved difficult, and expensive, to secure.

Even so, OHA has other permitting and financing hurdles to clear, and demolition almost certainly won't occur for a year or longer. So what's the heated rush?

At a time of mounting economic uncertainty, it's pointless to shut people out of shelter they need right now.