Portland’s downtown, like many cities nationwide, is in crisis: shuttered storefronts, people in visible distress, public drug use, unsafe and unsanitary conditions. Residents, business owners and visitors alike are heartbroken, frustrated and worried about the city’s future. Every day, our police, public works crews, EMS, outreach workers and nonprofit partners work inside a system that sets them up to fail — because the infrastructure they need simply isn’t there.

Portland taxpayers contribute over $8 million annually to Cumberland County, yet the county jail doesn’t offer the robust treatment and recovery programs operating in neighboring counties. At the state level, cuts to General Assistance funding have left Portland sheltering hundreds of people from surrounding towns without meaningful help.

Portland has long been known as both a compassionate city and a safe one. We reject the false choice between those values. Real public safety is care.

When we say care, we’re not talking about charity or private acts of goodwill. We’re talking about the essential systems that allow a city to thrive and keep it functional and accessible: shelter beds, housing placement, affordable housing production, mental health care, substance use treatment, harm reduction, and reentry supports. It is not charity; it is civic infrastructure and it must be treated as such.

That’s why we are calling for a paradigm shift.

First, Portland must adopt a coordinated housing and homelessness infrastructure plan — with clear goals, measurable outcomes and a public-facing dashboard to track progress. This dashboard must function like a public utility, showing in real time where public dollars go, what services exist, who can access them and, most importantly, whether they are working.

It should also track the condition and maintenance of our public spaces. Clean, well-managed parks, squares and streets aren’t just about aesthetics, they’re foundational to a healthy, thriving city. These are the spaces where residents, workers and visitors connect, where community life happens.

For those facing homelessness, addiction or mental illness, public spaces are often the only place help can reach them. A vibrant public realm is also key to economic and cultural resilience, and we must be clear-eyed about managing competing demands on shared spaces.

Transparency about sanitation, safety and public realm investment must sit alongside homelessness and public health metrics in a unified system. A public-facing dashboard would provide residents, city staff and elected officials the information needed to coordinate care, guide investments and hold all partners accountable.

That’s why we’re also calling for tools to support this system: a public space task force, stakeholder roundtables and conflict resolution frameworks to help manage competing uses of shared space while focusing everyone on shared results.

Second, Portlanders must help apply sustained pressure on the county and state to meet their obligations. Every day, local providers and taxpayer-funded city staff do the work of stabilizing lives without adequate backup from the systems meant to support them. This is not sustainable. Our city needs care infrastructure at every level of government.

This work isn’t soft. It isn’t secondary. Care — delivered through coordinated action, effective systems and public trust — is what makes communities strong. It’s time we governed with that understanding. Portland’s future will not be saved by blame or punishment. It will be built the way all cities are built: by investing in infrastructure that works. Let’s start with care.