Homeless but hidden: In CT city’s encampments, more couples, pets and people over 60

Discarded mattresses, box frames and tarps make up the four walls of Esteban Ayala’s home.

For the last three months Ayala has lived in a parking lot in Hartford, squeezed between the fence line and a dumpster enclosure that supports, and conceals, his structure.

Under bridges, in parks, on sidewalks, makeshift shelters like Ayala’s dot Connecticut’s urban and rural landscape.

Fed by a continuing housing crisis, expired COVID-19 aid and economic fallout from the pandemic, unsheltered homelessness rose 10% in the Capital Region, according to data from the Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network for shelter and housing.

While the increase in unsheltered homelessness has made the issue more visible, nonprofit leaders say facets of the city’s response have also made it more hidden.

Since the fall of 2021, Hartford has employed a homeless outreach and encampment protocol that aims to connect residents with shelter and housing resources before the city disbands an illegal camp site.

The system provides more structure and opportunity for intervention, but outreach workers say its very existence drives some homeless residents towards obscure and at times dangerous locations — a tactic that evades the gaze of city officials but complicates nonprofit efforts to locate and serve Hartford’s homeless.

In the last six months, the city of Hartford recorded 29 encampment complaints. Within that same period, the city disbanded 12 sites. Eight more locations are currently scheduled for cleanup, according to data from Journey Home, the nonprofit at the head of the Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network.

Patricia McIntosh, the director of Hartford’s Office of Community Safety and Wellness, coordinates the encampment protocol for the city.

Each week, city representatives meet with local outreach teams and Coordinated Access Network leaders to discuss encampments that have been flagged and request outreach services. The program is designed to provide individuals with shelter or housing assistance before the city cleans up their residence.

McIntosh said sites are identified through citizen complaints and Homeless Outreach Officer Jim Barrett. Once outreach teams connect with the unsheltered individual, McIntosh said the city will post a sign to indicate that the site has been flagged for cleanup.

McIntosh said the present system is much more “humane.” She said that in the past, when people started complaining about an encampment, the city went in and swept sites with no nonprofit involvement.

“We’ve taken it beyond that so that we can make sure that we’re trying to connect people to services,” McIntosh said. “It has to be a collaborative response and I feel that we’re working with our partners to the best of our abilities to do that.”

But Barbara Shaw, the executive director of the nonprofit Hands On Hartford, said it is not uncommon for people to remain unsheltered after an encampment cleanup. When disbandment occurs, she explained that the collaboration between the city and nonprofits can blur optics, breeding mistrust.

“The relationships that you might have developed that are helping relationships, might seem suspect. ‘Did the outreach team identify us? Did they help break up our home?’” Shaw said, describing the anxieties that can “set back” efforts to establish trust.

“[I] totally understand that folks, businesses, (and) properties are trying to be safe and maintain their own businesses, but it can really destabilize already vulnerable people,” Shaw said.

Roughly 130 unsheltered adults are engaged with Hands On Hartford’s outreach team, which works to put people experiencing homelessness on the path to shelter and housing while ensuring that individuals have access to the materials and resources they need to survive outside.

Shaw said there are even more unsheltered individuals living in and around Hartford who fall under their radar.

“Folks are more hidden than they used to be,” Shaw said. She added that the number of people living in abandoned buildings in Hartford today is “higher than we’ve seen in the entire time we’ve been doing this work.”

In Shaw’s eyes, Hartford’s homeless population became more hidden as the city and the public embraced encampment cleanups.

“People have learned that if you are unsheltered and you are living outside, you have to be pretty good at hiding yourself,” Shaw said. “It’s certainly not just the city of Hartford by a long shot … but it’s super challenging.”

McIntosh declined to comment directly on these concerns. She said Hartford has dedicated many resources towards expanding housing options and funding outreach providers and services.

“I am sure that it’s challenging,” McIntosh said. “We know that we are doing this with humanity and compassion behind it, and we’re trying to find the most effective approach.”

Sarah Pavone, the director of strategy for Journey Home, said cleanups happen in municipalities across the state without the knowledge or engagement of homelessness response teams — and that’s a problem.

Communities that lack Hartford’s collaborative model leave unsheltered individuals with little to no options once their encampment is disbanded.

“We’ve been sharing the Hartford encampment protocol as a guide or starting point for conversation,” Pavone said. “We are actively reaching out to municipalities and trying to set up the same referral tool … to make sure our folks are connected to resources and offered shelter when available prior to the disbandment of their encampment.”

Pavone said that in an ideal model, the city would offer every resident permanent housing, instead of shelter, when disbanding encampments, but “we currently don’t have the resources to do that just yet.”

“Coordination with our municipalities and with our stakeholders is better than having zero coordination, but I think we need to continue to build on the same vision that we actually do want the same thing,” Pavone said. “We want everyone off of the street.”

Stephanie Boyce, the co-director of Housing, Homeless Prevention and Outreach for Hands On Hartford said the city’s encampment protocol is “an improvement over not having one,” but she added “there is still a lot of work to do in the state around encampments.”

There are advantages to the system. Boyce explained that the city is often receptive to requests for “more time” before a cleanup. But Boyce admitted that the protocol has also affected the way outreach operates.

In one section of Hartford, Boyce is fairly confident there is an encampment, but it is well hidden and she said she wants to avoid bringing the outreach van to that area.

“I don’t want to take the team there because then it draws attention,” Boyce said. “So I try to capture them when they come into our day center.”

Hands On Hartford started its street outreach program in the fall of 2020.

Within the last three years, Boyce has seen major shifts in the demographics of Hartford’s unsheltered population.

She said the number of folks over the age of 60 has increased dramatically. Boyce said much of the elderly are experiencing homelessness for the first time due to rising rents and the expiration of the eviction moratorium.

The number of unsheltered couples has also gone up. Boyce explained that there is only one shelter in Hartford that can accommodate couples, and the wait for a bed can be long.

Boyce said she also sees more folks living in encampments with their pets.

One of the most concerning shifts, Boyce said, is the influx of unsheltered individuals suffering from medically complex conditions, like cancer, diabetes, mobility issues and other chronic health concerns.

While the number of people experiencing homelessness has increased since 2020, Boyce said she sees far less people today than when she started.

“It’s like, where is everybody?” Boyce said. “We know they’re there … We just don’t see as many people.”

Driving around Hartford, Boyce has become adept at identifying the places unsheltered individuals may hide.

One year Boyce said folks built their shelter within the hollowed center of a giant bush. Another time a man lived within a circle of trees at a busy intersection in the heart of the city, unnoticed.

“If you didn’t know it was there, you wouldn’t be able to tell,” Boyce said.

But there are some hiding places in the city Boyce said she can not go, mainly the abandoned buildings and underground locations that shelter an increasing number of Hartford’s homeless.

“You don’t know what you’re walking into or the condition,” Boyce said.

Homeless Outreach Officer Jim Barrett of the Hartford Police Department said that he goes where outreach teams can’t.

“The places that could potentially go south really quick, that’s where I go,” Barrett said.

Since 2014, Barrett has served Hartford’s homeless population, providing boots, clothes, food, hygiene kits and other things to those living without shelter.

Barrett said he is currently connected with adults ages 18 to 84, and one of the biggest things he has learned is that homelessness knows no social class.

Barrett said some of the people he serves lost their homes in evictions. Others were forced to abandon their apartments when their landlord refused to address a bed bug infestation.

While some folks were in poverty, Barrett said some made six-figure salaries before becoming homeless. Others are highly educated with master’s degrees. Some individuals are actively looking for work, while Barrett said others have jobs in corporate, medical, retail and service industries.

“You would never know that they’re homeless, until the end of shift (when) they will dress down again and go back to their abandoned building, or underneath the bridge, or to their encampment tents in the woods, Barrett said. “You will never know.”

“It doesn’t matter who you are, it could happen to anybody,” Barrett added. “Any one of us could be homeless any time.”

Barrett said in his work, he can’t hold any assumptions or prejudices.

“When I encounter these guys, I look at them as individuals, I hear them out,” Barrett said. “I had to hear their story so I could get them the support and the resources to get them out of their situation.”

Barrett described Hartford’s encampment protocol as “very effective.”

“We do it with grace and caring. It’s not an aggressive situation. We would give notification. We try to provide all the possible services before we give them a deadline to clean it up,” Barrett said. “All the organizations work hand in hand together to be effective. And, I think that’s the way other communities should be doing (things).”

Barrett explained that on cleanup days, he’s there to assist the individuals impacted and replace anything that they need.

Barrett said he feels the disbandment process does not impact the relationships with the people he serves.

“I know all these guys, they know I’ll take care of them. They know they’re never going to be forgotten because I treat them like family,” Barrett said.

Boyce, on the other hand, said the recent disbandments have hindered the working relationships with the individuals Hands On Hartford serves.

To counter this, Boyce said outreach teams have adapted their messaging around encampments. She said outreach workers will point out city-posted signs and remind folks to take belongings with them on cleanup day.

“We’re going to ask ‘Do you guys know what that (sign) means?’ And not be the ones to say, ‘Hey, you guys gotta go,’ because that’s not what we’re here for,” Boyce said.

She said outreach teams have also doubled down on providing garbage bags and reminders to keep their encampments clean.

“More times than not, when areas are a little messy, that’s when it flags,” Boyce said.

On an 80 degree day in October, clothes and carpet squares searched for a sliver of sunlight on the chain link fence and sidewalk surrounding Ayala’s shelter.

It had been four days since the last torrential rains drenched the city, but most of Ayala’s belongings had yet to dry as biting mosquitoes clung to the damp.

This state was unusual for Ayala, who said he likes to keep things tidy and will pick up trash for the property he lives on. The rain and an episode with trespassing raccoons the night before had left his setup in disarray.

“It’s really hard to be outside,” Ayala said. “This (is) a big issue that people don’t know (and) kind of don’t see.”

As he spoke, a resident of the multifamily home next door peered down at Ayala from a second-story window.

Later, Ayala said that the bigger issue is that most people only see and assume one thing when they encounter someone experiencing homelessness.

His words spoke to the duality of living unsheltered. On the one hand, you feel invisible, but also under constant scrutiny. You want others to see your situation and help, but at the same time you want to draw as little attention as possible.

“You’ll be doing nothing, right? And people start to pass and be nosy and they don’t know really what’s going on,” Ayala said. He explained how anxiety builds until one day “They call the city or Officer Barrett.”

The first time the city arrived to “clean up” one of Ayala’s sites, Ayala said he believed they were coming to take away the garbage, but at the end of the day, it was his belongings that ended up in a dumpster.

Already on his fourth setup in Hartford, Ayala said that he’s “waiting one day for someone” to take down what he has rebuilt so many times.

“The only things you got in life, [they] take it away,” Ayala said. “All your goodies, all your stuff that you love with all your heart … thrown into the garbage can.”

Ayala said he has nothing against Officer Barrett, but after his experiences, he doesn’t want to “deal with” Barrett any more.

“I don’t want no type of help (from) him. I don’t want that dude next to me,” Ayala said.

When winter comes, Ayala said he will not seek shelter at a warming center. After a one-week stay at a shelter last spring, Ayala decided that for a number of reasons, he is better off living alone outside on the street than inside with so many strangers.

After 11 years of homelessness, Ayala said he still hopes to one day get an apartment of his own, but securing the necessary documentation and paperwork can be a challenge, and waiting lists remain long.

Ayala told Boyce that at the moment, he “feels good” at the spot where he’s at. The employees of the property he sits on will sometimes bring him food and other items that he needs.

Before the outreach team left, Boyce invited Ayala to lunch the next day to fill out applications for insurance and food stamps, offered to have a nurse come look at a wound on his arm, and then said goodbye.

As Boyce drove away, she explained that Ayala’s site had yet to be flagged by the city.

“I’m surprised that it hasn’t come up,” she said.