Members of the city’s Task Force on Homeless Services still can’t agree on the best approach to the issue, even though they’re months away from delivering final recommendations.

Those divisions were highlighted Tuesday during a debate about whether to accept a subcommittee report that favored making homeless residents participate in rehabilitation programs as a condition of receiving services such as housing. That approach is not universally supported.

“I cannot support this at all,” said Tami Clark, director of the Community Drop-In Center, a member of the subcommittee who said she wasn’t allowed to have input in the report. “This is so inflammatory.”

“I vote against stifling information,” said Jim Schneider, urging the report’s acceptance.

Schneider is a clinical psychologist who prepared much of the report himself.

The report was ultimately accepted. And task force members say they still expect to find a common voice on the issue of homelessness.

“I think these issues will be resolved when we sit down to write our final recommendations,” said Dave Johnson, executive director of Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center, during the meeting.

“Or they’ll come to the surface more vehemently,” joked Helen Hartnett, an assistant professor in the Kansas University School of Social Welfare.

Former mayor David Dunfield appointed the task force in May 2003 to come up with a coordinated citywide approach to the issue of homelessness that previously had been addressed only by a disparate — and often fractious — group of private agencies.

Barbara Huppee, director of the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority, led Tuesday’s meeting in Mayor Mike Rundle’s absence.

“When this (task force’s overall) report comes out, it’s going to be the product of people who have different points of view,” Huppee said. “It’s our job to present a range” of opinions.

The current schedule calls for the task force to create a list of recommendations in September, meet with stakeholders in October and submit a final report to the City Commission by early December.

The task force next meets Sept. 21.