I read a recent article about efforts by the Falmouth Town Council to address the disparity in policing. I stopped, stunned, at learning the town has only 13 Black residents (0.1% of 12,224). It made me think the council should probably address a much more important problem than discriminatory policing: the policies that exclude those of low income from the town. For if Falmouth encouraged affordable housing, it would include more Black residents; indeed, it would include more poor residents of all races. Obviously, the multi-storied, multi-unit structures needed to provide affordable housing would be visually different than the present housing stock. But those of low income must live somewhere, and Portland and South Portland and Westbrook are fast exhausting affordable alternatives.

It was your article about Falmouth that spurred my thoughts, but Falmouth is hardly unique. I bicycle past many signs on area lawns that proudly and, I am sure, accurately proclaim Black Lives Matter and welcome immigrants. I assume those posting these placards value other “poor lives,” too, even if the particular poor person is Hmong or white or Latino. But without greater effort all these cared-for Black lives, poor lives and immigrant lives will necessarily live somewhere else and that somewhere is likely less attractive and nourishing.

I would hope that nearby town governments would start to act to alleviate the crisis so many of our less fortunate would-be neighbors face. Zone for low-cost housing. Like Falmouth, subsidize bus service.

Provide spaces in their quality suburban area to low-income students from urban areas. These are harder steps than sensitizing police forces. But they are arguably much more essential steps to creating a society where every one can prosper.

Daniel McIntyre
Westbrook