When Bangor and Brewer police encounter someone who is homeless and in need of services, the two departments’ law enforcement policies nearly mirror one another, but the resources each city has to offer people in need couldn’t be more different.
Police encouraging those in need to access appropriate help became common as the unhoused population in Bangor grew throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The Bangor and Brewer police departments also adopted policies in the spring of 2022, as required by state law, that require officers to direct unhoused people accused of committing low-level crimes to help rather than charging them.
Bangor has struggled to appropriately address its homelessness crisis and remove large encampments, which at one point required the assistance of a federal disaster relief team. But the issue seemingly hasn’t spread to neighboring Brewer. A closer look at the differences in physical resources and in the homelessness policies for each police department may explain why people who are homeless in Bangor don’t often walk across the river.
The informational cards that tell people how to access resources show the differences in the quantity and variety of services to which Bangor and Brewer police can direct people. Those resources include services from an overnight shelter to mental health treatment.
The two resource cards Brewer officers distribute hold contact information for mostly statewide offerings and resource hotlines. Of the four local organizations listed that can provide addiction recovery treatment and harm reduction materials, only one — the Bangor Area Recovery Network — is located in Brewer. The remaining three organizations are in Bangor.
Brewer police do not bring unhoused people in Brewer to the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter or Hope House, Brewer police Chief Jason Moffitt said.
The resource card Bangor police distribute, however, lists 29 organizations, most of which are in Bangor, that can offer people anything from a hot shower to detox treatment. That list includes what each organization offers, the address and contact information for those organizations and their hours of operation.
The Bangor Police Department also has a community resource officer who works with unhoused people who may need help or to be addressed if they’re doing something illegal, like tenting on private property.
“We try to always push resources before jumping to a criminal charge, but we still need to change a behavior, which may be camping in a business alcove,” said Elizabeth Ashe, the Bangor Police Department’s community resource officer. “[Officers] are going to be faster to give you a resource card than a summons. We can’t arrest our way out of homelessness, so police aren’t going to fix it on our own.”
Bangor also has the newly formed Bangor Community Action Team, a community crisis response team tasked with addressing situations that don’t require a police response. The team is often called to assist the many Bangor residents who are homeless, struggling with mental health disorders, substance use disorder or other challenges.
The team is entirely separate from the police, and its members have no power to arrest. Police officers don’t accompany the team when it is dispatched, but they can be called if a situation escalates.
Both Bangor and Brewer police departments have a homelessness crisis protocol policy that instructs officers to direct unhoused people to appropriate resources when they’re accused of committing certain low-level crimes. The policies, required by Maine law, are designed to divert people who are homeless away from the criminal justice system.
The policies for both departments direct officers to ask if someone is unhoused. If they are and are accused of committing one of the low-level offenses listed in the policy, officers should direct people toward resources rather than issuing a fine or summons for the crime.
The low-level offenses named in the cities’ policies are trespassing, disorderly conduct, urinating in public, possession of a scheduled drug and public drinking.
Brewer’s policy, however, includes a line that acknowledges “the need for enforcement action may be needed” in certain circumstances. Brewer’s style of addressing those who are homeless, coupled with the lack of services available, may play a factor in deterring people from crossing the river.
“If they’re open to and want help and you throw them a lifeline, we’ll move mountains to get them there,” Brewer Deputy Chief Chris Martin said. “But if they create hate and discontent, we’ll hold them accountable.”
A May 2023 report from Community Solutions, a nonprofit that works to end homelessness, details how punitive policing of unhoused people is expensive for communities and often worsens the problem rather than reducing it.
That’s acknowledged in the state law requiring all Maine law enforcement agencies to develop policies guiding police not to charge unhoused people for certain low-level vagrancy crimes unhoused people commonly commit.
This law is a marked step toward decriminalizing homelessness, said Charley Willison, co-author of the report and an assistant public health professor at Cornell University. But any policies where police are involved, such as Bangor and Brewer’s, or that rely on police to perform outreach work introduces the potential for punitive action.
“Outreach to persons who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness might concurrently result in offers of connections to social services along with persons being cited for unlawful camping or sleeping in public,” the report said. “The risks of punitive enforcement are further compounded if this individual is, say, experiencing a behavioral health crisis.”
Brewer’s document also has sections outlining cases in which a person would not be eligible for diversion. That criteria range from if someone has an active arrest warrant to if officers believe the unhoused person committed a domestic violence offense.
Bangor’s policy does not include such language, but Bangor police spokesperson Sgt. Jason McAmbley said officers will hold people who struggle with homelessness accountable for more serious crimes, such as assault, regardless of their housing situation.
It’s rare, however, for Bangor police to respond to someone who is unhoused because they committed a larger crime, McAmbley said.
“When we deal with someone who is homeless, it’s usually because they are homeless,” McAmbley said. “There’s no point in them being caught into the criminal justice system. It just perpetuates the cycle that we’re trying to break.”
Entering the criminal justice system and having a record also can make it much more difficult for unhoused people to gain housing in the future, McAmbley said.
Martin and Moffitt agreed police should balance compassion and accountability when dealing with someone who committed a crime and is also unhoused or grappling with substance use disorder. However, they also believe that spending time in a residential treatment program or in jail with drug treatment services, if there’s space for them, “gives them a reset, a chance to get clean and access to programs.”
“There’s this idea that somehow a temporary incarceration, like a sentence in a county jail, is going to ruin someone’s life, but we’ve had people tell us we saved their lives,” Moffitt said.