Over the last several months, our community has faced significant challenges: vandalism at Longley School, trying to find workable solutions to homelessness, difficult conversations about race and equity, and many others.

I’ve had conversations with people of all walks of life across Lewiston as we grapple with these issues.

A common thread throughout these conversations is the tension between personal responsibility and community responsibility. The questions I find myself asking include how can we as a community proceed thoughtfully and collectively to address some of our challenges? What does it take to move forward as a city and as a community?

The images of the vandalism at Longley School were heartbreaking. They were made even more so when we learned the school was vandalized by children. It’s painful to learn that four of our city’s youth damaged a community resource center.

“The kids should clean it up!” was a near constant response. “The parents should have to pay!” To me, that’s not where our focus needs to be. Should there be consequences? Yes, and those children are facing consequences for their actions. However, we must both ensure there are consequences and we must shift toward addressing the root causes of our community’s challenges.

Rather than continuing to focus on these individual kids and their parents, we need to take action and level the playing field. We must create the conditions for success for all Lewiston people and families, regardless of their socioeconomic status or race, because that is what will make our community a better, safer place.

This means ensuring that all families in Lewiston have a safe, affordable place to live. It means affordable health care, substance use disorder treatment, and nutritious food on the table every night. It means making sure families have access to quality child care, early childhood education, and after-school and summer programs.

Would addressing these issues negate what these children did? No. Would it rid Lewiston of crime or solve homelessness? Of course not. But these are actions we can take to help prevent future crimes and create the conditions for success in Lewiston.

These actions can help balance the scales and make our city more equitable. We are already on our way, with work like Lewiston’s Choice Neighborhood Initiative, which is funding community investments that will help address many of these root causes.

Personal responsibility is important. But we can’t let “people need to be responsible” absolve us as a community from doing nothing. Our community’s responses must take root causes like poverty, racism, and other structural issues into account.

That is what a real community of care looks like. When I ran for mayor my campaign slogan was “Lewiston Forward.” That means that nobody gets left behind. It means we as a community believe that everybody is worth saving.

This includes the children responsible for vandalism. This includes our unhoused and those suffering from substance use disorder. This includes all Lewiston people, regardless of their life circumstances.

I’ve learned a lot over my first six months as mayor, and it’s more clear to me than ever that we need to move Lewiston forward together: elected officials, city administration, business owners, service providers and residents. We need to leave the failed policies of yesterday in the past and focus on solving problems.

Lewiston is a community that cares. We are here because we want to be.

Channeling our energy into how we as a collective can make our community better, safer and more equitable is the way forward.

Carl Sheline serves as the mayor of Lewiston.

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