AUGUSTA — City officials must adopt a core belief that no one should be left without a place to sleep at night, and they must put that belief into action by hiring a city employee to coordinate services for people who are homeless.

That’s one of the many recommendations the Augusta Task Force on Homelessness made to city councilors recently after several months of studying how the city could better help the homeless.

What’s more, task force member said councilors must aggressively work to create a homeless shelter in Augusta open year-round where people could be helped to end their homelessness.

“On any given night in Augusta there are dozens of people who don’t have a safe place to sleep, they are men, women, children, elderly, veterans … it’s the whole gamut of people,” said Nancy Fritz, a task force member who previously served as director of homeless initiatives under former Gov. John Baldacci.

“Right now we have a warming center, but that’s going to close at the end of April and all those people currently able to stay there, won’t be,” Fritz said. “So they’ll be in doorways, in parks, they’ll be in yards, they’ll be in tents, because they don’t have a place to sleep. We all thought, on the task force, the city should adopt a core belief statement, that no one should go without a place to sleep.”

Fritz said what Augusta needs more than anything is a 24/7 place where the homeless can be. Having an overnight warming center that runs for anywhere from six to nine months a year isn’t enough, she said.

“That’s wonderful and I applaud that work, but it’s not enough,” she said. “And I know we here in Augusta can do better than that.”

In response to the task force’s recommendations to city councilors at their meeting Thursday, Ward 2 Councilor Kevin Judkins proposed the city buy a vacant building on Spruce Street, across from the new United Community Living Center daytime homeless services center, as the future home of a homeless shelter.

Judkins said a roughly 6,000-square-foot building on 1.23 acres there has recently been vacated by MaineGeneral and it could be a good spot for a year-round homeless shelter in a neighborhood with only a few residences.

He suggested the city form a partnership with a private sector entity to run the shelter. It could be paid for with city funds, including some of the opioid settlement money the city has received.

The task force also recommends the city dedicate a staff person to work on housing issues and coordinate services for people who are homeless. The group said that could be an existing city staff person or a new hire.

Earl Kingsbury, city services director, said he didn’t know of any current employees who could add such a large task to their workload and said he saw that job as a new full-time position.

Kingsbury, a member of the task force, said he would work with City Manager Jared Mills on how the city might fund such a position.

The person filling that position, task force members said, could better coordinate services provided to people who are homeless.

The group’s report noted numerous organizations provide services to people who are homeless in and around Augusta, but those organizations often don’t communicate or coordinate their work on homeless people’s behalf with other entities. The task force recommends better coordination, and providing and sharing information to improve services.

The staff person would also be charged with carrying out the task force’s recommendations, or at least those that city councilors agree should be carried out.

Kingsbury said a city staffer could help guide homeless people to services they might not be able to find on their own. If the city does get involved in a shelter, he said, it should include supportive housing with connections to services people could take advantage of.

Kingsbury said transportation is also a key, as many homeless people don’t have cars, and carry all their possessions with them all the time, in backpacks or in shopping carts. He said he’s been talking with officials at Kennebec Valley Community Action Program about returning a bus route or two to Augusta, such as to shopping areas and the hospital.

The task force also recommended the city:

• Consider zoning regulations that could be barriers to creating more housing, including establishing one or more zoning districts where a homeless shelter would be an allowed use. Currently, homeless shelters are conditional uses in some zones, which allows them to be built if they meet conditions, after Planning Board review.

• Form a new committee to meet regularly to ensure the city is taking steps toward accomplishing the goals outlined by the task force.

• Make building new housing easier and setting housing production targets, with a goal of 200 new units built by 2027.

• Take more of a leadership role in ending homelessness in Augusta and the surrounding area.

Mills said he and other city staff would work on a plan to implement the task force’s recommendations and report back to councilors.

At-large Councilor Mike Michaud asked why the number of homeless people in Maine appears to have tripled in the past three years.

Fritz said it’s largely because of a shortage of available housing and the skyrocketing cost of housing. When there are more people than there are housing units available, he said, some people are going to end up homeless.