Portland city officials provided updates regarding the homeless encampment below the Casco Bay Bridge during a Tuesday evening Health and Human Services and Public Safety Committee meeting.
The Casco Bay Bridge encampment, located in Harbor View Park below the bridge, has grown to become the city’s largest encampment following the city’s sweep of the Marginal Way Park and Ride encampment on Nov. 1.
[RELATED: Sweep Underway at Portland’s Largest Homeless Encampment, Being Moved Below Casco Bay Bridge…]
According to Portland Parks, Recreation and Facilities Management Director Ethan Hipple, the Harbor View encampment has a total of 120 tents — more than half of the 214 tents citywide.
“This time last year, we had 37 tents citywide — so again, today we have 214, so the problem and the challenge before us has definitely grown many times,” Hipple said.
The total number of homeless individuals living in the Harbor View encampment is likely significantly higher, Hipple explained, as many tents have multiple people living in them.
The city has begun to informally treat the Harbor View encampment as their next emphasis area, though a resolution date — a deadline after which the encampment will be cleared out — has not yet been set.
Portland Director of Health and Human Services Kristen Dow said that since Nov. 2, 23 available beds at the city’s Homeless Services Center (HSC) have been offered to individuals in the Harbor View camp — 7 beds have been accepted.
[RELATED: Taxpayers Have Spent More Than $114 Million on Portland Homeless Shelters Since 2019…]
Dow said the 30 percent success rate in bed acceptance is “much better than we have seen in the past, for sure,” and that almost every day someone comes into the HSC from Harbor View.
Two porta-potties have been placed in the Harbor View encampment, both of which are cleaned twice daily by Parks staff.
A challenge in providing the portable toilets within the city’s encampments has been that the city’s contract with a porta-potty pumping service is expired, and they have been unable to find another service provider.
“We put out to bid porta-potty pumping six months ago, and we got no bids,” Hipple said. “And so we’re running on an extension here with our existing provider.”
“Basically none of the providers want to do the work because of the challenging conditions,” he continued. “Some of the drivers have had some negative interactions and harassment.”
A dumpster and large sharps containers for used hypodermic needles were also placed in the Harbor View encampment last week.
“There were a lot of rats at that site [Harbor View], I would see rats every time I’d go there — so definitely not good living conditions for anybody staying there or the neighborhood,” Hipple said.
One major point of concern during the Tuesday committee meeting for Hipple and Portland Fire Chief Keith Gautreau was the homeless individual’s use of portable propane heaters.
Gautreau says that the Fire Department recently put out a fire that burned three tents to the ground in the East End.
“It was three tents that were burned up, and when we arrived we had propane tanks exploding,” Gautreau said.
An hour after putting that fire out, Gautreau continued, they were called to Harbor View park to put out a fire burning underneath the Casco Bay Bridge.
“The smoke was enveloping the bridge so much that people were driving into smoke,” he said.
“It’s cold out, they’re doing what they have to do, but it’s just increasing the safety risk right now,” he added.
Portland Police Chief Mark Dubois said Tuesday that the police response to the Harbor View encampment has been “very consistent with the other encampments.”
“There’s a lot of quality of life issues and complaints that we receive from the residents and businesses, a lot of criminal trespass,” Dubois said.
Dubois said there are two officers assigned to the encampment and its surrounding area from noon to midnight daily.
“They’re fairly busy — we do field a lot of complaints in the surrounding area for a variety of reasons,” he said. “A lot of people entering businesses that don’t really want them in there, they’re disturbing the customers and whatnot, using the facilities, or just hanging around.”
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="23327 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=23327">17 Comments
How many of these people have come from out of state for the easy to get on welfare system?
Keep keep voting for Democrats and it will keep getting worse.
Many nights when I go to my warm bed with soft clean sheets after taking a hot shower and having dinner, I think of the specious excuse that these people in the tent city prefer to stay put. Are they genuinely saying that or, is it just more of the typical BS by members of the city council to deflect from their inability (unwillingness) to actually solve the damn problem?
No one wants to back up and admit that closing facilities such as Pineland, not enforcing vagrancy laws already on the books, allowing people to tent out in public areas or providing less money to illegals instead of drug rehab centers for these people. That’s not leadership. It’s pandering to the “reimagining” progressive clap trap that has infected all of our public policy these days. Btw, screw the commies at the ACLU!
quit enabling this addicts-do not reward the behavior you wish to end
Quite a few cities south of Porland give the homeless population one way tickets to the Greyhound Bus Station in Portland and inform them about the benefits they can get there. This has been going on for quite some time, but it seems since Mills took over, the homeless and drug problems have only increased and worsened. Add to that elected liberal Portland city councilors that exacerbate the problem with their stance on drug use, vagrancy, shoplifting (stealing), etc… Look at the way the city handled “OCCUPY WALL STREET”, where they let that go on for quite some time, camping out in Lincoln Park and that “OCCUPY CITY HALL FOR HOMELESSNESS” where they camped on the steps and plaza for god knows how long??? When will they start enforcing the laws?
The five comments above encapsulate my thoughts perfectly.
Ha, the people of progressive, liberal Portland have nobody but themselves to blame. They elected the people who are allowing this to happen and keep electing them. When you keep doing the same stupid thing, why would you expect anything to change. Good luck Portland. This is your future. I bet the tourists off the cruise ships would like to take a walk down Commercial St just to see the mess and take a few pictures.
So so sad what the democrap leaders are doing to our once fine pristine city… Let’s vote for more democraps! Marxists
Every comment above is right on the money!!! As always, I ask the question, when are the people of Maine going to wake up to this Marxist/Socialist agenda and end it?
You all have the highest child abuse rate in the United States. Statistically a child abuser has already commented here (no I don’t have children but how many of yer kids don’t talk to you anymore hm?) The fact you all expect a functioning society out of that statistic is absolutely ridiculous. Fix your shit. Then you might have more well adjusted people in it.
If you don’t like them there then knockdown some of those filthy Weed stores and Condos and build them a shelter or turn the Strip club into a shelter.That ain’t doing portland any better than the homeless. What a joke Portland is.
End the Communist DemocRat open borders disaster and you cut all of America’s problems down to a manageable size !
Yet we continue with the same policies which brought us here. Huh
ID all of the rats from under the bridge. I bet most of them are not Mainers.
A Portland City Counselors view for “COMMON SENSE ADVICE”. (councelors) “Mainers voted to legalize DOPE. So now, why not legalize fentanyl and oxycodone too? We, the City Counselors of Portland can then vote to start giving all those drugs free to the homeless, along with alcohol, toilet paper, and free needles. That will solve this small problem.
I moved here last year from Washington State. It’s much worse out West. But I’ve seen a huge increase in the year I’ve been here. Yes, democrats may be adding to the problem. I tend to vote democrat for a variety of reasons. But I watched the problems increase out West. I understand democrats protect civil rights, but when it comes at the cost of social order I question the logic.
The problem is that idiots keep coming here from liberal s-hole states like Washington, because their state sucks and yet they come here and vote for the same kind of liberal idiots. Then they are surprised when the same stupid stuff happens here. Leave or stop voting democrat, you idiots.