A narrow path off of French Street that dips below ground level and is shielded on two sides by stone church walls, is a natural place for people to take shelter. Four reflective tents stood there last week as a sleeping bag was laid out to dry.
“It’s a sunny, safe, protected spot,” Rev. Jarrett Kerbel said of the space beside St. John’s Episcopal Church in Bangor, where he works as the rector.
The church had an agreement with a group of people who’d set up tents on church property: They could camp there, as long as they followed certain guidelines.
But then officials from John Bapst Memorial High School, which abuts the back side of the church property, filed a complaint with the city, and on Thursday the camp was closed.
The saga encapsulates a years-long struggle for the city, which has repeatedly failed to enact a comprehensive strategy for addressing homelessness. After the large “Tent City” homeless camp behind the Hope House Health and Living Center was closed last year, smaller groups have continued to pop up throughout Bangor as shelter beds and affordable housing remain scarce.
After the church’s encampment was shut down, some people living there simply packed up their things and moved elsewhere on the city’s streets. A small camp has formed in recent days in Peirce Park, outside of the Bangor Public Library.
People had been sleeping outside on the church property since before Kerbel began working there as the rector a little less than a year ago. The congregation has held internal discussions about how to address the informal encampment, and the church drafted a set of ground rules in mid-March at the suggestion of one of the campers, according to Kerbel.
Those rules, which were reviewed by the Bangor Daily News, limited occupancy to seven people between 7 p.m. and 9 a.m. and asked campers to keep the space clean and not use or deal drugs there.
Members of the congregation checked in every day with the people staying there, Kerbel said. For the most part, he felt like the agreement was working well.
“I think they deserve patience and kindness,” he said of the encampment residents. “It’s only with relationships and love that people begin to heal. And that’s what Jesus did.”
The private high school has a dorm next to the church that houses international students. A school administrator sent a complaint to the city on March 30 citing student safety concerns, according to emails obtained by the BDN.
After receiving the letter, the city notified the church that it was violating city code by allowing people to camp on its property, according to City Manager Carollynn Lear. The complaint from the high school was the only one her office received about the encampment, she said.
Jay Brennan, John Bapst’s interim head of school, did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
City code generally does not allow temporary shelters on non-residential properties. Code enforcement violations lead to fines when not addressed.
Lear said that the city “did not force” the encampment to close. But Kerbel said he felt the city’s communications were effectively an order to shut down the encampment.
“We can’t afford a lot of fines,” Kerbel told the BDN. “The second they threaten a fine, of course they’re telling us it has to end.”
The church asked the people staying on its property to leave last week, although it’s hoping to stay in touch with them. Some of those residents were connected with possible housing and detox placements through city outreach workers. Some are now staying in Peirce Park, near the public library, Kerbel said.
The gathering in the park has grown in recent days and prompted a “large number” of complaints, according to Lear. The library has been a flashpoint for years in debates over who the city’s public spaces belong to amid its homelessness crisis.
Bangor police have received 110 reports this year about incidents at Peirce Park or the library, according to spokesperson Sgt. Jeremy Brock. Those incidents could refer to any number of issues and are reported in several different ways, he said.
“City staff are spending a lot of time and energy talking about and planning for the best ways to address that situation,” Lear said, noting that a sidewalk accessibility ordinance that appeared on last week’s City Council agenda was related to issues outside the library.
The measure, which was referred to the Advisory Committee on Racial Equity, Inclusion and Human Rights for further discussion, would ban occupying or blocking sidewalks with materials without a license. It drew many public comments at last week’s meeting, with some saying it would improve safety and others saying it would unfairly criminalize homelessness.
The tents erected at both the library and the church on French Street point to larger issues with the city’s response to growing unsheltered homelessness.
The city’s primary strategy for addressing encampments, Lear said, is enforcing the local ordinances regulating outdoor camping.
“But I think what you can see outside right now is that that framework of ordinances is really insufficient to manage the issue fully,” she said. “We need more guidance from council on how they would like us to manage those situations.”
For Kerbel, the experience of dismantling the camp at his church showed that while the city employees working on the ground to help homeless community members are doing a great job, the city’s leaders lack an effective plan and are simply reacting to individual issues as they come up.
“It seems that the city is cracking down on street homelessness without an overall strategy,” he said. “I really think we have all the right people and a lot of compassionate Bangorians so that we could probably do a good thing if we got it all lined up, and we got out of this kind of ‘react react react’ mode.”
