Metropolitan King County Councilman Bob Ferguson proposed yesterday the county buy one or two closed motels to provide temporary housing for 50 to 100 homeless people.

Ferguson said he will introduce an ordinance that would earmark up to $3.4 million in council reserve funds to put a roof over the heads of that many homeless people in unincorporated areas.

"We have these surplus funds. Let's put them to use and get people out of tent cities," said Ferguson, D-Seattle.

Councilwoman Julia Patterson, D-SeaTac, said she was excited to learn of the undesignated reserve. "I don't know all the details associated with that surplus, but if we can use it to address the homelessness issue, I think we should," Patterson said.

Ferguson said he views Seattle's Aloha Inn as a model for a county program. The former hotel on Aurora Avenue North was converted into housing for 66 homeless men and women in 1991 with the help of $1.9 million in financing from Seattle.

Ferguson proposes to fund operating costs with the savings from reducing the size of the County Council at the end of this year.

The proposal is the newest development in a continuing debate over how the county should address homelessness. The council last week adopted standards for permitting tent cities of up to 100 residents but at the same time imposed a one-year moratorium on homeless encampments on county-owned land.

The council will meet Monday in Lake Forest Park to discuss the Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness proposed by a consortium of public and private agencies. The Committee to End Homelessness called for a coordinated effort to improve social services and create 4,500 transitional homes.

Councilwoman Kathy Lambert, R-Woodinville, called Ferguson's proposal "a great example of the council leading and finding real homes and real solutions to people's problems."

Councilwoman Carolyn Edmonds, D-Shoreline, who sponsored the ordinance establishing standards for homeless encampments and who is running against Ferguson for re-election, had a more ambivalent response.

"Any proposal that is reasonable and supports the goals set out in the Ten-Year Plan deserves serious consideration," Edmonds said. "It's unfortunate that he's turning the Ten-Year Plan and homelessness into a political issue."

The two Democrats are running against each other because the council is being downsized this year from 13 districts to nine, and they both live in newly drawn Council District 1.

Bill Kirlin-Hackett, program coordinator of the Interfaith Task Force on Homelessness and an author of the Ten-Year Plan, said he hopes Ferguson will work with service providers to refine his proposal.

"Every step is a good one," Kirlin-Hackett said. But, he added, "This is supposed to be a consensus process. While I applaud housing efforts, I want to see the collective efforts that are called for in this plan. ...

"If this is an effort to outlaw tent cities, I would say, 'Wrong direction, wrong action, wrong step.' "

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com