An article in The New York Times on Wednesday about the homelessness crisis in New York City contains the following two quotations, the first by former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the second by current Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Giuliani: “You chase ’em and you chase ’em and you chase ’em and you chase ’em – and they either get the treatment that they need or you chase ’em out of the city.”

De Blasio: “We don’t chase human beings who are in crisis.”

Thus the dilemma is made clear. Here in the Bayside neighborhood in Portland, the crisis is in the concentration of social service providers and in the number of people, especially during the summer, seeking these social services.

Many of these people sleep in parks. Some live in cars parked at the side of the road. There are those with young children. Some are people who, rightly or wrongly, leave the impression that it would be safe to avoid them.

Not only is this a human tragedy for those in need, the situation is hindering the development of Bayside into a healthy place to live and work; it is causing a flight of residents – including some longtime board members of the Bayside Neighborhood Association, who bravely moved here to raise families – out of Bayside.

The solution is not to diminish the availability of social services in Portland, but to distribute the location of these services equally throughout the city’s neighborhoods, districts and precincts.

Not only would this help Bayside recover and prosper, it would encourage the city of Portland to manage the distribution of social services more efficiently and humanely.

Why wouldn’t it be possible for Portland, Maine, to become a model city in this regard?

Charles Kaufmann

member, board of directors, Bayside Neighborhood Association

Portland

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