Mark Dion is the mayor of Portland.

I expect critiques from the public on how we accomplish the city’s work. Last Sunday’s editorial regarding winter warming shelters, however, missed the mark with its lack of critical context (“Conditions shouldn’t apply to winter warming shelters in Maine,” Dec. 7). Its message struck me as unfair; Portland is the only municipal government providing year-round emergency shelter services in the state of Maine.

I am always surprised how quickly critics demand Portland to do more but are not at all responsible for the added financial consequences that come with more expansive services. It’s as if they fail to see that Portland taxpayers cannot be expected to pay more for the lack of leadership from other municipalities to meet this regional challenge.

City staff operate three emergency shelters that are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days of the year. In fact, the city spent $25 million to build a state-of-the-art emergency shelter facility that offers 258 beds each night. We also run a 179-bed shelter for newly arrived immigrants, as well as a family shelter for up to 40 families.

The surprise this year? Not that winter was coming, but that no community organization was planning to request funding from MaineHousing to offer an overnight warming shelter in Portland. The same result arose from the city’s effort to use opioid settlement funds to operate a day space for the unhoused.

City staff actually began searching for a space and a community partner to staff a warming center this summer. That diligent effort yielded nothing. So, Portland did what it does so often — we stepped up — and submitted a plan with a budget request for $400,000 that would allow us to run a winter warming shelter for up to 60 people for 50 nights this winter. Last year, the non-profit that ran the winter warming shelter in Portland only had funding to open for 35 nights.

But apparently even that is not enough.

From the beginning, the city has acknowledged the plan for a warming shelter on Riverside Industrial Parkway was far from perfect, but that it was better than nothing. Adding these 60 beds when the winter warming shelter is open requires maximizing floor space at our existing shelter and involves running a shuttle service to get people to and from this space.

Every day in Portland, we also dedicate staff to provide outreach services to unhoused individuals in the hopes of connecting them with the services they need —whether that is behavioral health, substance use treatment, general assistance, or access to an available shelter bed.

Candidly, it’s frustrating to me and our very involved staff that the editorial board of this newspaper would choose to criticize Portland as unwieldy and out of touch with the realities of winter given the services we provide not only during the coldest months, but all year long. Where else in Maine can you find a city that does as much as Portland in meeting these challenges?

One might think that the editorial board would instead consider offering thanks to our employees, who care for a population that everyone has written off as Portland’s problem; or that they would provide some positive acknowledgement to members of Portland City Council, which is left to grapple with a social catastrophe that other governments can seemingly ignore without political consequence. They all have earned it.

I must also ask why there is not a call to action for other municipalities, counties, faith-based organizations and non-profit organizations to step up and share in this work? How much more do Portland staff have to do, and how much more do our taxpayers have to pay?