Bangor city councilors unanimously passed an ordinance Monday night banning the storage of belongings on sidewalks amid rising concern around homeless residents gathering near the public library.
Councilors made their decision after more than an hour of public comments about the city’s homelessness crisis in a room packed with both supporters and critics of the ordinance.
Its passage follows weeks of discussion about a growing group of homeless community members camping in Peirce Park and on the sidewalk outside the library on Harlow Street. It is also the latest development as the city has struggled for years to devise a long-term strategy for addressing homelessness, instead repeatedly clearing encampments and moving homeless people from one place to the next.
The ordinance, which was passed with revisions from the city’s Advisory Committee on Racial Equity, Inclusion & Human Rights, bans storing any materials on city sidewalks without a license, with the goal of making sure everyone can freely and safely use the sidewalks, according to the meeting agenda. It states that people will first be offered help and resources before being fined for violating th e
In effect, homeless people who have been putting up temporary shelters like tarps and tents on the sidewalk near the library will no longer be able to do so. They already are not allowed to be in the park after hours, which were recently reduced when the city decided to assign a police detail to the area.
Although all nine councilors agreed to pass the measure, the council chambers Monday night were divided, with some residents and business owners urging more action to crack down on homelessness near the library and some homeless residents sharing frustration at being repeatedly kicked out of public places.
“There is no place for us to go. Everybody is complaining we’re on the sidewalks, we’re here, we’re there, well, if we had a place to go, we wouldn’t be there,” Angela Eastman said, adding that she thinks the city needs to designate a place where homeless people are allowed to go without being asked to move along. “We get treated like we’re not even human.”
The park has become particularly crowded after winter warming centers in the city closed last month. City leaders have also suggested that police have seen an uptick in the last few months of new people becoming homeless, City Manager Carollynn Lear reported in a workshop Monday.
“Many residents are no longer comfortable using public services and spaces that we pay for,” Joe Bowman said during public comment of the effect this has had on public spaces like the library.
Several leaders from the library’s board of trustees also spoke in support of the measure.
A version of the ordinance was suggested in September by the Downtown Bangor Partnership, a nonprofit that works with the city to advocate for downtown businesses, residents and community organizations and is partly funded by a special assessment tax on property owners in the downtown district.
At their workshop before Monday’s meeting, councilors agreed they needed to work immediately on determining where homeless people can be allowed to go in the short term.
“Tools like the sidewalk ordinance are going to help manage immediate issues, but that doesn’t change the fact that there is a large population of folks who don’t have a home to go to at night anymore,” Lear said. “No number of sidewalk ordinances is going to change that.”
