A couple months ago, my physical therapy practice on Congress Street was burglarized. Two days later, one of my physical therapists was verbally threatened by someone who had entered our lobby to use a scrap of a waiting-room magazine to roll a joint. Unfortunately, these were not isolated events, but part of a larger, ongoing crisis.

On July 14, members of Portland’s City Council will have an opportunity to approve Portland Downtown’s Ambassador Program — and I urge them, and anyone who wants to help turn this around, to support it. The Ambassador Program is exactly the kind of immediate, practical support this city needs. The staff will help clean up our streets, engage with the public and connect people to services before things escalate. It won’t solve everything, and it’s not meant to. But it can help address the day-to-day symptoms we’re all living with while we work toward deeper, long-term solutions.

Like many business owners in Portland’s Arts District, I’ve been watching the slow unraveling of a neighborhood I love. I opened Dirigo Physical Therapy and Performance in 2018 in the Arts District. I believed in Portland’s downtown — its creativity, its energy and its people. I still do. But each day, it’s clearer that the current situation isn’t working. Not for businesses, and certainly not for those in crisis.

The well-documented business closures are symptoms of a deeper crisis. As a recent op-ed in the Portland Press Herald pointed out (“Portland’s Arts District is officially in crisis,” June 13), the issues we’re facing — addiction, mental illness, homelessness and vacant storefronts — are not isolated. They’re connected. And they’re getting worse.

In my work as a physical therapist, I often treat patients who come in with knee pain, only to discover the source of the problem is actually at the hip. If I focus only on the knee and ignore the hip, we’ll be stuck managing knee pain forever. Fixing their knee pain means treating the hip. But here’s the thing: I can’t ignore the knee, either. The patient is in pain now. I have to manage that pain while we work on the root cause. That’s what real recovery looks like.

The same is true for Portland. We need long-term, coordinated efforts around housing, mental health services, addiction treatment and public health. But we also need short-term responses that meet the moment. The Ambassador Program is a chance to do both — manage the crisis in front of us, while we work upstream.

Soon, I’ll be providing weekend physical therapy hours at the Maine Correctional Center, hoping to help incarcerated individuals learn to manage pain without relying on opioids. It’s a small step, but it reflects my belief that real change starts upstream — treating the hip — before someone ends up on the street, in crisis, or without support.

At my clinic, we’ve moved to a secure entry system — a necessary precaution, but one that adds friction to care and creates another barrier for patients. And we’re not alone. Too many small businesses are making similar decisions just to keep the doors open. The Arts District needs action. It needs plans. And it needs partnership — both for the people experiencing the visible effects of this crisis, and for those trying to stay in business beside them.

The Ambassador Program is not a substitute for systemic reform. But it’s a lifeline. Let’s use it as a starting point and take action before more businesses, residents and artists are forced to walk away.