Of the many online comments, letters to the editor and op-ed submissions this paper has received on the crisis of homelessness in the city of Portland, few have given appropriate consideration to the experiences of the people living on our streets and in our public parks.
Many of the solutions offered – by lay readers and policy-types alike – have been preoccupied with infrastructure, funding, toilets, trash, policy transfer from “the other Portland,” and so on.
Recently, more voice has been given to the concerns of frustrated Portland residents living near homeless encampments about safety, sanitation and the ability to enjoy public space. These views, often presented as representative of “taxpayers,” should be heard.
But they have no business being heard above the concerns, ideas and general outlook of members of Portland’s homeless community, which were the subject of a compelling set of profiles published in last Sunday’s newspaper (“How I became homeless,” Aug. 20).
Complete with audio clips online at pressherald.com, the stories told by j Rancourt, Nikki Cassetta, Edward Stewart, Amber Lesperance, Allan Hill, James Spanos and Mona Miller, taken together, bring to life the difficulty of living without a place to call home; the extent of the challenges that have to be overcome on a daily basis; and the very, very fine line that exists between relative financial and residential security and none at all.
Each of the people interviewed spoke with courage about their situation, often going into rare personal detail. Many of the accounts are heartbreaking. The before-and-after arc, the “how,” in most cases, is nowhere near as stark or uncommon as may be assumed by those of us who look on from passing cars or neighboring windows.
Despite the toll of coping outside, grappling with the ins and outs of the shelter system and living with total uncertainty about the future, many of the people profiled expressed a closely held hope for a chance to start over, to get back on their feet.
It’s this type of resilience and optimism that must be drawn on by all parties as we continue to refine our response to widespread homelessness, ensuring that steps taken to remedy the crisis are as compassionate – and informed – as possible.
We’re going to need a bigger … slip fee
Much ado yesterday about the 82-room luxury “gigayacht” that cruised into Casco Bay on Monday night (“Lavish and looming, gigayacht bobbing in Portland harbor attracts curiosity and contempt,” Aug. 23). Owned by billionaire media magnate David Geffen, the five-story, 453-foot-long Rising Sun dwarfed every other vessel near the coast on Tuesday, drawing the attention – and in some cases, the ire – of passers-by.
The vast boat, a regular visitor to Portland, has itself been dwarfed in recent years by new environmentally unfriendly counterparts. Ten years ago, it was in the top 10 largest yachts in the world. Lively demand for increasingly elaborate superyachts during and after the pandemic has knocked it back to 20th position. No matter, a visit from a double-height maritime cinema, somewhere between 45 and 60 staff members and some extravagantly polluting diesel engines is enough to get a lot of people going.
The vessel’s stop in Portland reminded us of a legislative proposal this year by Grayson Lookner, D-Portland, to charge megayachts that opt to dock in Maine a “slip fee,” per foot, the proceeds of which would go mostly to investments in the state’s waterfront. The spirit of the bill, with an eye on climate preparedness and coastal preservation, rightly acknowledges the superyacht’s status as a super polluter.
The bill is with the Special Appropriations Table, having passed both the House and the Senate this year. With revisions, if needed, it should be brought to fruition.
Questions over affordability and anxiety about loss of business are at best far-fetched. Crafted correctly, we’d be talking about a drop in the operating-costs bucket for owners, many of whom are devoted to spending time in Maine in any case. A lengthy report published by the New Yorker last summer summed it up nicely: “For the moment, a gigayacht is the most expensive item that our species has figured out how to own.”
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