As with pretty much any possible solution to San Francisco’s stubborn homeless problem, building tiny homes has been talked about for ages.

And then talked about some more.

But now there’s — gasp — an actual plan! Granted, the plan exists only because one department head is tired of the inaction. And he doesn’t yet have the support of, well, anybody else he would need to move the plan forward.

But still. In talky, hand-wringing San Francisco, that’s further than most city officials get.

The plan maker in question is Mohammed Nuru, director of public works. In an interview in his office the other day, he showed me little white plastic boxes, models for his tiny homes. His team is crafting prototypes of the units, each of which would measure about 100 square feet, smaller than a parking space.

He said he’s eyeing plots of land on the Embarcadero and the Great Highway for Navigation Centers — shelters with counselors and services — where the residents would live in tiny houses, though he wouldn’t say where specifically. He wants 80 to 150 tiny homes to be grouped together, with residents sharing communal kitchens and bathrooms and each person having a storage locker.

He said each home could be built for $50,000 to $75,000, which is far less expensive than the eye-popping $750,000 to build one traditional affordable housing unit. Nuru said plenty of homeless people living in tents on the streets reject offers of traditional homeless shelters because they crave privacy, and these little houses could give them that.

“That’s where we’re going to as a city,” he said of the tiny home movement. “If they’re willing to live in a tent, they should be willing to live in a nice cubicle, right? It’s much better than being on the streets.”

Tiny homes have become a trend nationally as real estate prices skyrocket and more people fall into homelessness. Dozens of villages exist around the country, and more are planned, including one in Santa Rosa set to open this year.

San Francisco officials have considered the idea for years but have run into stumbling blocks, including resistance from organized labor. Unions want to ensure their workers build the homes, not workers in far-off factories.

Mayor London Breed didn’t grant a request for an interview on tiny homes but sent a statement reading: “I am considering all options, ideas and innovative approaches that will help (get) people off the street and get them inside. I am looking at everything, from changes to state legislation to various types of housing. We are currently exploring various ideas for housing and assessing their feasibility.”

Nuru, who has ruffled feathers at City Hall before by plunging ahead with his own plans to tackle homelessness, is convinced tiny homes could be a game changer and wants quick action.

“We need to change some of our attitudes and really try to solve the problem,” he said. “Let’s stop saying no. Let’s do a little bit more yes.”

Circle of defeat: It seems the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency can’t get anything right these days. Its improvement project in the Twin Peaks Tunnel went horribly awry, causing major delays on bus lines all over the city.

Then there’s the $2 million project to “improve” the intersection at Diamond and Bosworth streets in Glen Park, which was supposed to have been completed two years ago. Crossing through is still a nerve-jangling exercise, and the agency is still making changes to the signals in hopes of getting it right.

Sometimes, the agency just gives up, like on the traffic circle that was recently installed at McAllister and Steiner streets at a cost of $80,000. The agency also removed the stop signs at the intersection. The idea was to allow 5-Fulton buses to travel through the intersection without stopping and save them an average of nine seconds.

But it seems San Franciscans just don’t get roundabouts and would stop their cars midway through the circle in confusion. This, shockingly, didn’t help the buses at all. Loud honking ensued, neighbors’ blood pressure spiked, and it seems nobody was happy.

So the agency is going to remove the traffic circle and reinstall the stop signs for an additional $40,000.

Ed Reiskin, the city’s director of transportation, personally emailed the neighbors to tell them the good news. That email was forwarded to me, and a neighbor wrote: “The city listened! I know. Astounding, but true!”

It could be argued that $120,000 for nothing is what’s astounding, but at least the neighbors can get some peace.

Broken: San Francisco’s vehicle break-in epidemic has gotten so bad, foreign governments are issuing warnings about it.

The Italian consulate general in San Francisco recently emailed Italian American organizations in the Bay Area, as well as Italians living here.

“WARNING!” the note began ominously. “Car break-ins hit a historic high in San Francisco. ... If you have been robbed of your Italian passport and must urgently return to Italy or your country of residence, the consulate general of Italy in San Francisco is here to help.”

It then goes on to tell people whose passports have been stolen to get them replaced quickly.

I heard this telling tidbit from Ken Borelli, chair of the cultural committee for the Italian American Heritage Foundation of San Jose. He’s relaying the information to the group’s 1,500 members in hopes they notify people visiting from Italy to leave nothing in their cars while touring San Francisco.

“In all my life, I’ve never had an alert like that from the consulate general,” he said.

A few months ago, Borelli was at the San Francisco Jazz Center when he returned to his car, parked on Hayes Street. He saw a man just a couple of feet away use a small tool to break the window of the next car over.

“I said, ‘Hey!’” Borelli said, recalling that the burglar looked right at him and carried on with the theft. “I was completely shocked! He just looked at me defiantly and got into his car.”

As is standard, the getaway car had no license plate so it couldn’t easily be identified. And when Borelli found a police officer nearby to report the crime, the officer said, “We don’t really enforce car break-ins anymore.”

Welcome to San Francisco.

Update: I told you last week about a San Francisco Superior Court judge indicating he’ll release a serial car burglar, putting him on probation yet again despite a grand jury indicting him in April on 20 charges, including 11 felonies, for car burglaries and a hit-and-run committed while on a previous probation.

The final sentencing had been set for Aug. 17, but it’s been continued to Aug. 31. I’ll keep you posted.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf