More than one-third of the people who lived in Bangor’s largest homeless encampment scattered to unknown locations after the city closed the site at the end of February.
Of the 96 people who were living in the wooded area behind the Hope House Health and Living Center, 28 people entered housing, but three have since left those arrangements, according to Jena Jones, Bangor’s homelessness response manager.
Another 36 people, however “exited to locations that were not known to city officials,” Jones said in a report to city councilors. This could mean people are still homeless and moved elsewhere.
Jones delivered a final report to the City Council during a workshop on Monday that outlined where everyone in the encampment, colloquially known as Tent City or Camp Hope, went. The report is the most complete information the city has provided that outlines exactly what happened to the nearly 100 people who were living in tents, campers and rudimentary shelters since the city closed and cleared the site more than a month ago.
Located between Texas Avenue and Cleveland Street in Bangor, the encampment has existed and grown in size for years and was seen by many as the epicenter of the city’s homelessness crisis.
The last person left the area on April 2, marking the end of a nearly seven-month process in which outreach workers, case managers and housing navigators from the city and numerous local social service organizations worked with people at the encampment to address their needs. The goal was to get everyone living at the site into housing or shelter while keeping them connected to other resources.
“Certainly, it was not perfect,” Jones said on Monday. “We would have loved to move all 96 individuals into permanent supportive housing, had that resource been available.”
Eleven people from the encampment went to an emergency shelter, such as the Hope House Health and Living Center or Bangor Area Homeless Shelter on Main Street, and another 11 ended up at the Penobscot County Jail and didn’t return to the site.
The city also knew of 10 people who were couchsurfing when the encampment closed in February, Jones said in her report.
One person was reunited with family, another entered a sober living arrangement, and one person died during the closure process, according to Jones.
Bangor’s regional representative for the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness recognized the city as one of the only communities to follow the 19 Strategies for Communities to Address Encampments Humanely and Effectively according to Jones.
The city closed the area to new entries on Feb. 28, but allowed people already living there to remain while they finalized their “exit plans,” Jones said at the time. Meanwhile, people still living in the encampment following the closure told the Bangor Daily News that city employees returned multiple times to move debris and belongings left behind by residents into piles to be cleared away.
The city initially planned to close the site at the end of 2024, but delayed that plan by two months, in part, to align with when Penquis CAP hoped to open Theresa’s Place, a permanent supportive housing building across the street from the encampment.
Theresa’s Place hadn’t yet opened to tenants as of Monday, according to Debbie Laurie, Bangor city manager.
In addition to ensuring the people who moved into housing have the support they need to stay there, Jones said the city is trying to maintain their connection with the people who don’t yet have permanent housing or haven’t connected with local outreach workers at all.
To begin, a new working group within the city is connecting with leaders from various places in Bangor, such as the public library, hospital emergency departments, jail, and police department, that often interact with people who are homeless but aren’t equipped to connect them with the help they need, Jones said.
