PORTLAND, Maine — Crews in Portland worked to remove the homeless encampment near the Bayside Trail on Tuesday. City leaders voted May 9 to remove the encampment citing concerns about public health and safety.
Residents at the encampment said they have no where else to go, seeing the city-run shelters are fully nearly every night.
About 80 to 90 tents have been set up in the area in the past few months, as the city is under serious strain to provide shelter for people experiencing homelessness, as well as a surge in asylum seekers to the area.
Clearance of the area has been delayed once before, seeking more feedback from the public, but crews executed the removal Tuesday morning.
City leaders estimate nearly 1,000 asylum seekers have come to Greater Portland since the start of the new year, escalating the need for emergency shelters as the local shelters are pushed beyond capacity, likely leading to the recent rise in the number of encampments.
"Money comes down to it for all solutions. ... We're trying to work on and then finding the proper facilities to do so," Jessica Grondin, Portland's spokesperson, said. "Portland can't do it alone."
According to a report from The Maine Monitor, service calls to the area have more than doubled since the year before, with more than 300 estimated calls just to Bayside alone, Portland police said.
In that same report, The Maine Monitor stated that the city houses about 1,200 people every night, and the addition of the Portland Expo as an emergency shelter to house about 300 asylum seekers filled up "almost immediately."
“We’re pushed to the brink,” City Manager Danielle West told the publication.
Chrissy Russell and Keith Gammon have lived together for the past few weeks at the Bayside encampment.
"It's just overwhelming right now, not knowing where your next move is going to be," Gammon told NEWS CENTER Maine. "I've got a case worker, and she's tried everything. She said they're working on me to get an apartment on Brighton Avenue, but that's a process. I never thought it would be this crazy."
Russell and Gammon said they have nowhere else to go and plan to camp along Portland's Back Cove area.
For workers and volunteers helping Portland's unhoused people, such as Courtney Bass, there is nowhere to turn.
"Just having to watch people pick up their homes again. No answers ... but we will continue to be here to support them because they matter," Bass said. "There are no open shelter beds. There is not one place these people can go right now."