Glenn Blodgett stood before a graffiti-covered wall under the Water Street bridge and listened to the sounds of his new home.
The roar of cars from above and the hum of heavy machinery just 100 yards away consumed his surroundings.
Blodgett was one of 30 people who were displaced from the homeless encampment at Healy Park, which Concord Police swept earlier this month. He lost the cabin he constructed out of salvaged materials, along with many of his personal belongings.
“I built a cabin over there, a three-room cabin. I had a bedroom, a living room, a kitchen,” said Blodgett. “All kinds of scrap wood and stuff we find in a dump, we grab that. Whatever we can find to build with.”
At the entrance to Healy Park, abandoned tents, bikes, crutches, shopping carts, and a Lightning McQueen blanket were some of the many items left behind after the cleanout.
This police-led sweep marked the beginning of an uncertain future for those who were forced to leave Healy and warned not to return.
“They won’t let us get a bunch of it, only what we could fit in our wagon to get out in time,” said Blodgett. If he were to try and recover some of his lost belongings, police told him he’d be arrested for trespassing.
To Freeman Toth, homeless encampment clean-outs are both fiscally harmful and counterproductive to the housing process.
“It leads to lost vital documents, like birth certificates, marriage certificates, bank statements, social security cards and IDs,” said Toth, the housing stabilization and outreach manager for the county Community Action Program. “And that is very expensive to continue having to replace, not to mention the amount of time it takes to replace those items. People have lost housing opportunities because we couldn’t get them identification fast enough.”
Blodgett lived in Healy Park for a year and a half before the big move. He spent far less time under the Water Street bridge. Police told him and the others to move along. That area was cleared out this week.
“We asked them, where can we go?” Blodgett said.
With no permanent place to live, he carried his belongings to yet another encampment in Concord.
The city of Concord made the decision it needed to reclaim some of its public areas, like Healy Park, amid a growing homeless population. The city has between 300 and 400 homeless individuals living here, depending on who is doing the estimate.
Critics of the cleanouts say every time an encampment is cleared without a plan to give people stable housing, the problem just gets shifted from one place to another.
“Encampments will exist and will continue to exist no matter how many times we sweep them,” Toth said. “It is a fact that when they clear out a site, it’s only a matter of time before people go back.”
Blodgett has been unhoused for almost 12 years. He’s one of many who has missed out on key housing opportunities because CAP workers like Toth have been unable to locate him.
“They have to check in with me every 90 days to stay on the waiting list. If Glenn’s not able to get us a message about where he’s going, then he could fall off the list, which is what’s happened to him a couple of times,” said Toth. “And he understands that, but the public often just kind of portrays it as like people aren’t trying, and it’s not that they’re not trying, it’s that they’re being shuffled around so quickly.”
In addition to separating unhoused people from outreach workers, encampment cleanouts separate unhoused people from each other.
“We all try to work together… figure out what we can cook up as a meal together and eat as a group. It’s pretty much my family here. Now we all got to leave this area, I don’t know what we’re gonna do, we’re all gonna separate now. That’s going to be a lot harder on us,” said Blodgett.
Donna Gove, who also lived under the Water Street bridge, grew up with Blodgett in Concord. She has been un-housed for over six years now, alongside her son and boyfriend. While she never lived in Healy Park, she has been subject to her own series of police cleanouts.
“We started out at the 393 bridge together and moved to the Friendly Kitchen. Before I came here, I was actually down by the scrap yard, almost in Bow, but it was a guy’s property, and he decided he didn’t want us there,” said Gove.
Each deadline to move feels overwhelming for Gove, because she has no way of contacting her younger son.
“My son doesn’t even know where we’re going to be. He’s in rehab, so he’s going to come under here and find us… not here,” said Gove.
Gove can’t bear the thought of moving and lifting heavy items in the summer heat.
“It’s pretty much killing yourself,” said Gove.
Like Blodgett, Gove desperately wants to find housing. She has already gone through the process of experiencing homelessness and being housed, but ended up getting kicked off her lease for letting her family stay in her apartment.
“My son, my cousin, and my man,” said Gove, with tears in her eyes.
It’s a familiar story.
“One of the leading reasons people who are newly rehoused will get evicted is if they let their family or friends in that aren’t on the lease,” said Toth. “With all subsidized housing, if the person’s not on the lease, they can’t be there.”
Episodes like that can be major setbacks for finding housing in the future. An eviction is like a Scarlet Letter for anyone looking to find housing, Toth said.
Staying on the right side of the law is equally essential for better odds at finding a permanent place to live, whether it’s through the Housing Choice Voucher Program or supportive housing programs. Yet, being pushed from place to place by the city with the threat of being arrested for trespassing can make it difficult to avoid legal trouble.
At least two people were arrested during the Healy Park sweep for camping in a restricted area, according to Concord Police logs.
“If they wanted to, they could throw us in jail right now, because we’re too close to the tracks,” said Gove.
When Healy Park was flooding in the spring, Blodgett said he got cited for walking along the highway when trying to escape the water.
“I get that there are safety issues, right? But to tell them they have to leave, and then to ticket them for leaving in a way that is not desirable,” said Toth. “I’m never someone that says it’s not fair, but there is so much that is not fair, yet they are held accountable for it.”
Blodgett didn’t want to say where he’ll go next.
“We don’t like telling where we are. That’s the only way we can feel safe. Because when we do say anything, the cops are right there,” said Blodgett.
From the city’s perspective, large homeless encampments often thwart the intended use of public spaces.
Yet they exist in part because it’s easier for people to live outside as part of a group rather than alone.
“There is safety in numbers,” said Toth.
Others, like Justin Briggs, drift away from large encampments for fear of attracting police attention.
“My advice, for anyone who’s in a rough position, like me or anyone else around here, the bigger the circle, the more stress that comes with it,” said Briggs.
Briggs, who has been homeless on and off for over 10 years, lives in a tent alone near Fort Eddy Road.
Toth finds this kind of isolation concerning.
“The fact that he doesn’t feel safe in groups because he’s worried about his site getting spotted means he pushes his site out to someplace that’s more remote, which means that he is now less safe,” said Toth.
Toth’s hope is that everyone lives long enough for CAP to find them housing.
Blodgett and Gove have moved from under the bridge, but the next time they get displaced by the city, their future will remain equally uncertain, yet ultimately predictable.
“It’s very cyclical,” said Toth.
Blodgett’s unsure how many times he’ll be forced to pack up before he finds a long-term place to live.
“We don’t know what we’re going to do,” said Blodgett. “We’re all going to be just standing here… either getting arrested and having our stuff thrown in the trash because they told us, or walking out of here with just a little bit on our backs.”