BANGOR, Maine — The City of Bangor worked to close down one of its homeless encampments along Valley Avenue Tuesday.
Outreach workers had been at the encampment every day for the past two weeks aiding people with permanent and temporary housing options.
On Tuesday morning, Bangor Public Health Director Patty Hamilton said the outreach team had secured the majority of the 11 or so people living in the encampment to permanent housing using housing vouchers.
Bangor has been working with different local agencies, including Penquis and Community Health and Counseling Services, to meet housing needs.
In September, the Department of Housing and Urban Development sent a technical assistance team to share an emergency management style approach to closing homeless encampments.
The Valley Avenue encampment is the city's first attempt to use the approach.
"This is our learning, and on-the-job training and learning how to do this. And we're looking forward to doing it with other encampments," Hamilton said.
More than 40 people from 10 or more state and local agencies have collaborated to ensure all unhoused people in the Valley Avenue encampment have housing, according to a release from Bangor's city manager, Debbie Laurie.
Jennifer Marshall has been living in the encampment for the past year, but as of Tuesday afternoon, she was just a few hours away from moving into her new apartment.
"I'm really glad. As many times as I wanted to give up, I didn't. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other," she said. "Now today, I get to move forward and start fresh and maybe have a chance at a future."
The majority of people living on Valley Avenue had the same fate as Marshall. However, her neighbor, Brooke Murphy, hasn't secured permanent housing yet.
"We'll keep trying to figure something out," Murphy said. "Then hopefully when tomorrow comes, it'll be a new day. And maybe we can even get an apartment tomorrow, hopefully."
Murphy said she's keeping her hopes high because she said her case managers will continue to work with her until she gets housed.
"It's hard, a little bit hard for me to get into housing knowing not all of us are today," Marshall said.