PORTLAND, Maine — City officials did not start clearing a homeless encampment around the Portland end of the Casco Bay Bridge Tuesday morning as previously planned.
According to Maine Public, Portland City Councilors approved a resolution Monday night opposing the plans to clear the encampment in Harbor View Memorial Park. The resolution passed on a 7-2 vote, with Mayor Mark Dion among those in opposition.
It’s unclear when the city will go through with its planned clearance but Preble Street Executive Director Mark Swann, who was at the encampment Tuesday morning, said Portland City Manager Danielle West had communicated to him that action was being delayed until at least Dec. 28.
Preble Street is one of the city’s largest homeless services providers.
After the delay, Swann said, city officials would reassess the situation based on outreach workers’ progress in convincing encampment residents to seek shelter.
On Tuesday, as it became clear the city was not going through with previous clearance plans, campers emerged from their waterlogged tents, sharing cigarettes and drinking coffee brought by workers from Preble Street.
One camper, who gave his name as Chris, said he was going to start moving anyway. He indicated it would be somewhere else in the city but didn’t want to say where.
He also said he wasn’t interested in going to one of the city-run shelters because he had two dogs that would not be welcomed there.
“After seven years together,” he said, “we have an emotional bond.”
The city’s clearance plans came after it removed similarly large encampments from the Bayside Trail, the Fore River Parkway Trail and Deering Oaks Park earlier in the year. The state also removed an encampment from a parking lot on Marginal Way this fall.
With temperatures dropping, officials said they fear more tent-dwellers will be at risk for fires while trying to stay warm. Two people in tents, one in Portland and the other in Sanford, recently died in fires. In total, there have been 12 deaths in Portland campsites so far this year. Portland officials also said there have been seven overdoses at Harbor View, one being fatal.
A recent survey during the intake process at the Homeless Services Center revealed the top barrier to accepting a bed was the loss of autonomy. In an attempt to counteract that concern, the city has extended the shelter curfew to 11 p.m.
