Advocates for the homeless last legislative session proposed a bill with great intentions and a $2 million fiscal note. Lawmakers accepted the great intentions but stripped away the money, leaving the bill seemingly useless. Turns out that great intentions can produce good results — the bill reconfigured and revived a task force that has produced a compelling argument for helping shelters beyond even beyond the bill’s scope.

The report by the governor’s Task Force on Homelessness and Housing Opportunities — including the state commissioners of mental health, human services, corrections and labor — examines the 33 percent increase in the use of homeless shelters in Maine during the last couple of years and the fact that 55 percent of these homeless have either mental health or substance abuse problems or both.

State funding has not come close to keeping up with the added burden on the 37 shelters. The state contribution of $500,000 has remained unchanged, in fact, since 1988 and now accounts for less than 8 percent of the average shelter’s costs to provide services. The result, according to Paul Haskell, president of the State Homeless Coalition, is that some overfilled and understaffed shelters have been forced to start turning people away. In the middle of a Maine winter, that’s serious business.

The increased use of homeless shelters in a time of supposed prosperity should sink the cliche that a rising tide lifts all boats. It doesn’t, and in fact a rising economic tide can have the opposite effect, raising rents for people who were just barely making it to the end of the month and floating them into homelessness. Add to this the welfare changes on the federal level and changes in General Assistance closer to home and you get what Maine has: a higher homeless population and shelters straining to accommodate everyone.

The task force worked first on making shelters safer. With the number of people with behavioral-health problems, it concluded that the level of supervision at the shelters needs to increase — to a ratio of one supervisor for every 15 people staying overnight. To keep these folks from staying overnight permanently, it also recommended that local contributions to shelters be freed up to allow for job training and education to move people to independent living.

Most importantly, the task force plan would improve the partnership between local nonprofits and the Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse. This means improved training in mental health, better service to shelter users and more effective use of resources.

All of this costs money. The task force set a goal of making the state a 50 percent financial partner with the locals. This makes sense, considering that homelessness is a statewide problem, with a relative handful of communities providing services for everyone. The estimated bill for the changes comes to $3.15 million annually, an increase of $2.6 million over current funding.

That’s a huge increase, but the shelters have a huge problem and the state’s lack of interest has been part of it. As lawmakers work over the details of the task force report, they can ask whether it is fair and humane for shelters to rely on local spaghetti-supper fundraisers for a large statewide problem or whether Augusta should contribute its fair share.