Nearly a month after Bangor closed the city’s largest homeless encampment behind the Hope House Health and Living Center, it’s unclear what’s happening at the site, as people appear to still be living there.
Encampment residents have reported heavy equipment has come several times in the last few weeks, often without warning, to gather tents, belongings and other debris left on the property into piles.
A few people remained in the encampment among the piles of tents, trash and possessions on Tuesday.
All the while, city officials haven’t answered a series of questions from the Bangor Daily News regarding how many people still live there, how many have moved into housing and what the city’s plan for the items left behind is.
The encampment, often called “Camp Hope” or “Tent City,” has grown in size for years. The community sat removed from the general public, but became the physical representation of Bangor’s longstanding homelessness crisis.
City officials formally closed the site to new residents on Feb. 28, but 16 people still lived there at the time and weren’t forced to leave. Jena Jones, the city’s homelessness response manager, said the remaining residents were “working through their exit plans,” meaning they intended to move out over the weekend or were waiting for a shelter bed to open.
At the time, David Warren, a spokesperson for the city, declined to say exactly how many people had moved into permanent housing.
Debbie Laurie, Bangor city manager, said 73 people lived in the encampment in October 2024 when the city announced its plans to close the site due to “an alarming increase in illegal activity, particularly related to allegations of violence among encampment residents.”
At the time, Laurie said the ideal scenario is to move encampment residents into permanent supportive housing while keeping them connected to other essential resources. It’s unclear how many residents achieved that before the site’s Feb. 28 closure.
Jones’ last update on that work, released on Dec. 18, reported 15 people had been housed and four others had signed leases and were waiting to move into units.
Five more people had moved into shelters, two reconnected with family and 13 more “left the encampment under other circumstances,” according to Jones’s Dec. 18 update.
Warren said on Feb. 26 that the city will share a “full breakdown” of where encampment residents moved “in the coming weeks,” but the Bangor Daily News had not received this information as of March 25.
Michael Gleason, who lived in the encampment for four years, said residents were told they wouldn’t be forced out when the encampment closed. However, heavy machinery arrived soon after to begin removing people’s homes and belongings.
The equipment, including a bulldozer, skid steer and excavator, arrived at the site for a third time on March 12, according to Gleason, who moved to the Hope House Health and Living Center last week. Each time, Gleason said he wasn’t told the machinery was coming to clear items.
Warren did not respond to questions on March 24 regarding whether encampment residents were notified when machinery would arrive to clear items from the property.
Before the demolition began, Gleason estimated there were 100 to 120 shelters on the site, including tents, campers and makeshift structures.
On March 20, Gleason said the construction equipment returned and continued stacking items into heaps. Again, the 15 or 16 residents still living at the site weren’t told when the equipment would arrive, he said.
Though Gleason reported the area “looks like a warzone” since city officials began gathering shelters and belongings into piles, he said residents are “reluctant to leave.”
“I’ve seen a lot of people come through this camp,” Gleason said on March 20. “This has been an eyesore in Bangor for a long time, but people have to go somewhere.”
