At this time last year, Gov. David Ige was prepping to ask the Legislature for money to help cope with homeless encampments springing up on state lands, and he wanted “to ensure that we have shelter space available before we go through ‘compassionate disruption,’” or clearing of camp sites.

“We want to make sure that we have an offer for each and every homeless (person) of somewhere to go,” Ige said in an interview then with Honolulu Star-Advertiser editors and reporters.

Flash-forward to this week. As the governor unveiled a proposed two-year state budget, which asks state lawmakers to significantly step up spending on assistance related to homelessness, a fissure is opening in the effort to ensure that people opting to leave the streets get a shelter bed.

Waipahu Lighthouse Outreach Center, the sole emergency shelter on Oahu between Kalaeloa and urban Honolulu, could close next month because it lacks money to pay for construction needed to comply with new state rules requiring more space for clients and better ratios of toilets and showers per client. Community members are now volunteering to help keep the center open. Even so, the effort would need additional help in the form of funding or a variance of some sort from the state.

How many other shelters face being shuttered because they cannot afford to meet the new minimum standards for operations as established last year by legislators?

Last month, operators representing eight of the islands’ larger shelters warned that new state Department of Human Services (DHS) contract rules requiring the upgrades would force them to eliminate a total of 662 beds when the contracts take effect in February. While it’s unclear how many of the 100 beds at the Lighthouse center would have to go, 73 homeless people spent Sunday night there.

Besides requiring shelters to meet certain facility health and safety standards, DHS has proposed a rule requiring 50 percent of each shelter’s clients leave within 30 days, with half moving into permanent housing. Ige defended the new rules last week, saying: “Sometimes we weren’t focused on the right outcomes. We really want … to move them (homeless clients) into a permanent situation.”

Now — one short year after expressing concerns about the immediate upheaval of compassionate disruption — the governor wants to “ensure that the system that we have in place really moves people from being unsheltered on the street into permanent housing” at a rapid pace, despite a glaring shortage of affordable housing.

Governor: Slow down; reality check. This is not the mainland. Move forward, but don’t leave outfits like the Waipahu shelter, which has been helping the down-and-out for a decade, behind. A less-abrupt transition period should be put in place to help shelter operators struggling with what is so far an impractical mandate.

In his proposed $28.5 billion biennial budget to be submitted to the Legislature next month, Ige is asking for $20.9 million per year in spending related to homelessness. A slice of that funding could go to shelter operators in good standing in need of assistance for site upgrades.

Ige’s push to quickly move people through shelters and into permanent housing is in line with a new best practices system seeing some success in mainland communities. On Tuesday, Hawaii was rewarded for adopting that focus with $11.5 million in federal grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But unless truly affordable housing is pushed at an even faster clip, this strategy will bump into greater obstacles in Hawaii than elsewhere due to short supply of land and ever-steep rent rates.

During the past year, Ige said, the state has touched more than 5,000 people though its homelessness-related efforts. Clearly, it is making a dent in the ongoing problem. But as the state takes a step forward, the governor should take care to not slip backward in supporting shelter operations, which serve as the gateway to permanent housing for people living on the streets.