In an op-ed published July 25, Portland City Councilors Kate Sykes and Sarah Michniewicz concluded that the cause of Portland’s homelessness crisis is that the city “undervalues care.” They suggest that we need “a coordinated housing and homelessness infrastructure plan” and that we need a “public-facing dashboard” to track progress.

That’s fine, I guess? It’s good to have a plan, and it’s good to be transparent about your progress. But a plan and a “dashboard” are worthless if you don’t have the money to actually do the work itself. The core problem, now more than ever, is the money.

In a July 14 City Council meeting, Councilor Sykes addressed this: “Here’s the truth, the hard truth, and no one’s going to say this, but I’m going to say it to you right now: we are at the end of our toolbox. […] We just don’t have any more tools — and we don’t have any more money.”

Bingo. We’re trying to fix system-scale problems (e.g., unaffordable housing, an epidemic of substance abuse, skyrocketing homelessness, etc.) with municipal-scale resources because the county, state and federal governments have abdicated their responsibilities.

Instead, our leaders have prioritized continuing (and expanding!) tax cuts for the wealthy over investing in our local communities.

Consider the following:

• The LePage tax cuts for the wealthy were never repealed. Gov. Janet Mills still refuses to raise taxes on the wealthy.
• The tax cuts for the wealthy from President Trump’s first term were continued during the Biden administration.
• Trump and congressional Republicans (with yet another totally symbolic, kabuki-theater “no” vote from Sen. Collins) just passed another round of tax cuts for the uber-rich, with billions in budget cuts for the rest of us.

For decades, our leaders have slowly shifted costs from the federal to the state level, and from the state to the local level. Now those chickens are coming home to roost.

Councilor Sykes pleaded with us in that July 14 City Council meeting: “When we’re left to manage the fallout like this, it’s because of state and federal failures. They’re basically sending the bill to us now. Please help us put the pressure on the county, and on the state — who keeps cutting general assistance — and keeps moving this up the chain. […] Don’t fight us — help us. Help us push up so that we can get those services that we need.”

I agree. We shouldn’t direct our outrage at Portland city councilors who are doing their best with extremely limited resources.

Instead, we should flood the inboxes of our legislators, congresspeople, senators and governor with demands that they pay their share for basic services like housing, drug treatment and schools, instead of giving the wealthy even more. The people need to come first, not the billionaires.

It’s truly heroic and impressive what Portland is able to accomplish on a municipal budget. But these challenges are bigger than us, and they’re not unique to us either: they’re shared by communities across the country because our entire government has been looted by wealthy interests.

Until we stop catering to those wealthy interests, until we start taxing the rich again and reinvesting in our local communities, our problems are only going to get worse.