Mayor Kate Snyder used her final State of the City address Monday night to focus on the homeless crisis facing Portland and encouraged city residents to vote, revealing that in-person voting will begin Tuesday, sooner than anticipated.

Voting will open in the state room at City Hall on Tuesday for in-person early voting. Mail-in ballots will be sent out in the coming weeks, and voting will take place on Nov. 7 at polling places around the city.

Snyder encouraged voters to reference the city charter when voting for mayor.

“It’s important to think about what we are asking this person to do and who is raising their hand for service,” she told an audience that packed the City Council chambers. She urged voters to “get involved, meet the candidates and vote.”

Snyder went on to highlight homelessness as the biggest issue the city faces. She called the issue “the No. 1 thing on my mind, and the minds of my elected counterparts and city staff.” Snyder laid out progress the city has made in tackling the affordable housing crisis and pointed out that oftentimes new housing can take years to be realized. Snyder pointed to a housing development on Douglas Street approved at the beginning of her term that is still in the process of being built. She mentioned other pending developments on Fore Street, Congress Street and Casco Street. She said that 3,159 new housing units have been approved to be built in Portland since 2018.

“Some people will say, ‘We have no new housing built in Portland.’ Others will say ‘There’s nonstop construction in the city of Portland, when will it end?’ well it both feels true sometimes,” Snyder said.

Of the encampment crisis, Snyder highlighted the work of the Encampment Crisis Response Team and stressed the importance of agreeing on a “problem statement” when it comes to the encampments. Snyder called the homelessness crisis in Portland an “unprecedented crisis.” She referenced a seven-point plan that Preble Street sent to the City Council ahead of the encampment workshop last week that laid out a way forward for the city. Snyder spoke favorably of this proposal and emphasized the importance of government working with community partners to solve the problem.

Snyder spoke about the relatively new members on the council and in city leadership. City Clerk Ashley Rand, City Manager Danielle West, and Corporation Counsel Michael Goldman all have been hired in the past six months, and only one city councilor – Pious Ali – has served more than one term on the council.

“Your team is in place, this is representative government,” Snyder said. “It’s so easy to show disdain and to point fingers, but I think we need to be here for the work and not for the fight.”

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