Given the lack of affordable housing for low income people in Portland and the State of Maine, housing advocates are calling on public officials to meet the demands BLM Portland made at the June 6 demonstration of more than 2000 protesters in Portland that lasted more than eight hours. These demands seek racial justice by moving funds from the police to social services, including housing, and by replacing Portland City Manager Jon Jennings because of his policies “that hurt poor, predominantly Black and brown people” through gentrification, among other things.

In open letters to Governor Janet Mills, Mayor Kate Snyder, and the Portland City Council, a new coalition of grassroots advocacy groups named Housing Justice Maine  is urging public officials to overcome the systemic racism in the housing market. “Addressing the housing crisis will require courage and political risk from you, our leaders. Addressing the housing crisis requires prioritizing the human rights of low income people over the business interests of developers.”

The letters cite statistics on the extraordinary inequities and discrimination in Maine experienced by Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other people of color. Disparities in the rate of COVID-19 among these populations have received a great deal of attention in the press lately; far less publicized are the economic inequities that accompany them including lack of access to affordable housing.  These inequities are exacerbated by the disproportionate arrests by police and suspension in schools of BIPOC. The letters cite arguments to defund the police that state that law enforcement originated with and still does have the “basic function of managing the poor, foreign, and nonwhite on behalf of a system of economic and political inequality.” This system also uses the police and prisons to manage people experiencing homelessness, rather than calling on community-based experts that can provide safety, support, and prevention.

The letters call on the State and the City of Portland to move money from police funding into the community resources that can protect, support, and empower the Black community and other communities of color. The City of Portland is particularly urged to replace Jon Jennings as City Manager, and to give up his policies of gentrification for an approach that considers housing as a human right.

Housing Justice Maine is a coalition that includes Maine Equal Justice, the Maine Immigrant Housing Coalition, Maine People’s Alliance, Maine People’s Housing Coalition, Presente! Maine, Raise-Op Housing Cooperative, and the Southern Maine Workers’ Center.

The open letters to Governor Janet Mills, Mayor Kate Snyder, and the Portland City Council are available at www.raiseop.com/homesforall