Mayor Darrell Steinberg with Stephen Watters of First Step Communities inside one of the organization’s sleeping cabins on display in the City Hall courtyard.

A tidy sleeping cabin sat on display in the plaza outside City Hall Tuesday as members of the Sacramento City Council directed staff to quickly pursue a variety of homeless housing options proposed by Council members.

The plan would add 500 shelter beds to the city’s inventory in 2020.

The Council said the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency should continue working on the specifics of the proposals, which include the sleeping cabins, safe lots where homeless people could sleep in their cars, a converted Motel 6 on Alhambra Boulevard and scattered apartments in Districts 1, 6 and 8.

These new proposals add to already-approved plans for larger shelters — called Navigation Centers — that will soon be under construction in Meadowview and under the W/X freeway near Alhambra and Broadway. These shelters are scheduled to open in spring and will house a total of 200 people at a time, though the Meadowview Navigation Center will be for women only.

The expanded programs would be funded for 2020 by about $22.5 million in new state and private money the city is expected to receive in the coming months, including $8.5 million Mayor Darrell Steinberg expects to raise from private donors.

City Councilmembers have come forward with their specific proposals in response to the call by Mayor Steinberg a year ago for each Council member to located 100 shelter beds within their district.

“I’m heartened that my colleagues responded enthusiastically to the challenge,” Mayor Steinberg said at Tuesday’s meeting. “You’ve taken it seriously and put real effort into it.”

Nearly a dozen city-funded shelter programs are already open or preparing to open, including the Capitol Park Hotel at Ninth and L streets and a program that pairs homeless youth with host families. All of the new programs and shelters include wrap-around services to help people transition into permanent housing.

Councilmember Jeff Harris has proposed erecting 49 sleeping cabins for women and children on a piece of city-owned land on Northgate Boulevard and Patio Avenue in South Natomas near Garden Valley Elementary School. First Step Communities displayed an 8-foot by 14-foot prototype for the project Tuesday in the City Hall plaza. Executive Director Stephen Watters said the cabin could be replicated on a larger scale, though he still needs to identify builders.

Harris said he envisions “a little tiny home community where the kids can walk across the street and integrate” into the schools. Councilmember Allen Warren has also proposed building a cabin community in his North Sacramento district.

The exhibition by First Step Communities follows one last month by Pallet, a Washington state-based company that also manufacturers sleeping cabins.

Neither company includes bathrooms or kitchens in their cabins; those would be contained in group facilities on site. Besides helping contain costs, such congregate facilities encourage people to engage with each other and seek services, rather than staying indoors in their own space.

Harris said his proposal includes a central building that would contain a community gathering place, a medical clinic, case management services, restrooms and laundry.

Several Councilmembers are looking for sites to establish safe lots where homeless people can sleep in their cars.

If all the new beds come online in the next year as planned, “we have a chance to really bend the curve on homelessness,” Mayor Steinberg said.

“I encourage the diversity of options presented here tonight,” he said. “I just insist that following tonight we follow through with urgency, with passion and with speed.”