Staying outdoors in the summer heat “is no fun,” said Thomas Bateman, a disabled factory worker.

The bedraggled 63-year-old Richmonder hasn’t been able to find an affordable place to stay in the city, and his only income, a government disability check, allows him to pay for a motel stay just one night a month.

As a single adult, he has a lower priority when it comes to getting a bed in the existing shelters and, like several hundred other homeless people, must find his own place to lay his head at night out of sight of authorities who would push him to leave.

He said he found a wooded spot in North Side where he camps out, but he refused permission to be photographed or have his camp photographed because he said he has been forced to leave other places.

“But it’s not like I can turn on the air conditioning,” he said. “I’m just hoping something will change and more shelter beds will open.”

So does Fifth District City Councilwoman Stephanie A. Lynch, chair of council’s Education and Human Services Committee.

With the support of colleagues, she just authored a memorandum outlining homeless services initiatives the council would like to see implemented by Mayor Levar M. Stoney’s administration, which already has rejected the committee’s call to open a summer shelter for the disabled and for families with children.

As has been the case for several years, the top priority, according to the memo the council issued July 28, is the creation of a year-round shelter where those who are admitted could get counseling and connection to housing resources, including the city’s rapid re-housing program.

In response to the memo, the Stoney administration, which has about $4.35 million to spend, is poised to deliver a plan to “comprehensively expand the safety net” of shelter and other services to assist the homeless to the council in early September, according to Lincoln Saunders, the city’s chief administrative officer.

One focus of the plan is expected to be on having shelters in place for the rapidly approaching winter to keep homeless people from freezing to death when the network of nonprofit shelters is full. Last winter, the city struggled to get additional shelter space open.

“We have reviewed several sites and providers and are evaluating the most viable options” as well as gathering cost estimates, he wrote in his own memo.

He stated that the potential shelter sites that the city is considering might require special use zoning permits as well as a memorandum of understanding with the private organizations that would operate the venues.

Mr. Saunders also stated that another crucial element of the city plan involves the development of a “coordinated entry process for those with the most urgent and serious needs.” The city would not go it alone, he added, but would work with the regional homeless services network, called the Greater Richmond Continuum of Care or GRCOC, to improve the entry process that city would mostly use federal grants to pay for.

The initiative he outlined would apparently build on the current entry process, which primarily operates through a dedicated phone line, (804) 972-0813, manned by representatives from homeless shelters.

However, Mr. Saunders cautioned that any last-resort shelter operations that the city contracts with private groups to open would not link clients to rapid re-housing, which he said is the province of the existing shelters in the region that do operate year-round.

Some advocates remain skeptical that Mr. Saunders efforts will result in a year-round shelter, pointing to several examples of initiatives that have not gotten off the ground.

Three years ago, the city ordered Padow’s Deli to move out of a prime first-floor space in City Hall to make way for a one-stop housing resources center, but that center has never opened.

In addition, a regional effort to use a collective $11 million in federal funding to buy a hotel or motel for a combination shelter and resource center also has gone nowhere. Richmond and the counties of Chesterfield and Henrico have jointly agreed instead to use their individual pots of federal grant dollars to develop permanent supportive housing in their respective localities instead of a regional shelter.

Other priorities listed in the city memo include beefing up the city’s Family Crisis Fund that is administered by the non-profit HumanKind, formerly Presbyterian Homes and Family Services.

The fund, which seeks to stave off evictions and utility cutoffs, was created to provide the cash that individuals and families lack. The fund already has received $2 million from the city, but council wants an additional $700,000.

Mr. Saunders stated in his memo that the city already has added $600,000 and would soon add an additional $250,000.

The council also wants the administration to increase the cap on payments HumanKind can make to help families avoid eviction and utility cutoffs from $2,500 to $5,000 and more aggressive marketing to increase the number of people applying for assistance.

In addition, the council is calling on the administration to provide $120,000 to enable Daily Planet to continue its counseling program for the homeless through November, which Ms. Lynch describes as a trusted, critical service.

Mr. Saunders stated that “our comprehensive package” to be presented next month “will propose expansions for flexible intervention funding like the Family Crisis Fund, housing navigators, street outreach and case management and as well as a site for information and referral.”

In partnership with members of GRCOC, he concluded that the aim of the city’s plan would be to “bolster the array of community services to help persons either avoid or quickly exit homelessness.”