The bitterly cold conditions that have descended on Maine over the past 24 hours had been looming for days before the City of Portland announced plans for a temporary warming center.

We’re relieved that this and other emergency centers came into being, most of them “low barrier” in nature, with few or no preventative terms or conditions on access. Frostbite has been treated in Maine since October. Life-threatening hypothermia can set in from 32 degrees, never mind -17. The temporary shelters across Maine will save lives.

Even once we get through this “cold snap” – a playful term for a lethal weather system – the 10-day forecast for even the most southerly parts of the state has the temperatures falling below 32 every night.

As a result, there is no good reason more centers aren’t already open to Maine’s homeless throughout the winter months, in Portland and beyond.

High-level financial help is currently on offer statewide; as part of the emergency energy relief bill, MaineHousing is preparing to spend $21 million on winter shelters. Proposals for near-term overnight warming shelters had to be submitted by yesterday, Feb. 3, open soon as possible, and stay open through April. Proposed solutions for next winter must be submitted to the state housing authority by Feb. 24.

It’s the lower-level, community-based cooperation that seems to be harder for officials to crack.

An admirable template exists in Augusta where, last fall, the lower level of a church opened to people in need of a warm place to sleep at night.

Hailed by local community workers as “a godsend,” the Augusta Overnight Emergency Warming Center, open from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. from Nov. 1 to April 30, can accommodate up to 40 people. This weekend it succeeded in freeing up overflow space for an anticipated surge in demand.

The shelter is operated by South Parish Congregational Church, the church that houses it. It came about with the help of grant funding and American Rescue Plan monies made available by city councilors who voted strongly in support of its establishment.

Contrast this with the anxious, oppositional scene in Portland this week, where – before news on the temporary overnight warming shelter broke – a volunteer outreach group named Hustlin4theUnhoused criticized the city for “casting the entire responsibility on non-profits and faith-based organizations.” By its estimate, more than 200 individuals in Portland are sleeping outdoors on a given night right now.

Once the City of Portland’s Cumberland Avenue shelter was confirmed Wednesday afternoon, local churches that had been putting plans in place for overnight shelters were asked to stand down.

The stakes are way too high for there to be this lack of joined-up thinking.

There are many different coalitions, groups and individuals working to alleviate the worst hardships of homelessness in and around Portland. If these disparate efforts could be unified and coordinated, we’d be in a far more capable and responsible place.

There’s a reason that step one of a winter planning guide published by Department of Housing and Urban Development during the pandemic is “engage critical partners.”

The guide lists people with lived experience, community outreach groups, health care providers and emergency management. Each of these groups brings vastly different insight and expertise, all of which can be maximized when they are braided together. Funding and other resources, we can organize. Formalizing that kind of engagement, and working at regular communication and collaboration, is the bigger task. It has the bigger return. And it comes at the biggest cost to our most vulnerable neighbors when it is not insisted on.

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