'Welcome To Hell': Concord Homeless Camp Growth Raises Concerns

CONCORD, NH — City officials and activists are raising concerns about the explosive growth of encampments around Concord where the homeless are congregating — with no apparent solutions to the problem that are only compounded by a low housing vacancy rate and the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the closure of the city's cold weather shelter in May, homeless individuals began setting up camps almost immediately, with officials saying it is now close to three dozen at different locations spread out across Concord.

In years past, there were only a handful of locations where homeless campers stayed. Those areas were often unseen, covered up by spring and summer plant growth or off the beaten path. At one point eight years ago, nearly 100 people were estimated to be living in a massive compound behind the Everett Arena and along the Merrimack River between the arena and NHTI. Campers also settled along the Merrimack River between Loudon Road and Terrill Park — the location of a future bike trail.

Since the clearing of the arena compound in 2018, after several deaths, a five-year legal battle about what government entity was responsible for the land, and a constant flow of traffic by police officers to incidents of violence and mayhem, the city's homeless dispersed in many different directions, as was expected. Camps can now be found on the southeast side of the city, to the south of Sam's Club on Route 106, down to the old sand pit known as Slaughter's, on both sides of Interstate 93 from Exit 13 to Exit 14, and even in the woods of the West End behind Lincoln Financial — although that camp appeared to be cleared out recently.

Concord Police Chief Brad Osgood said the department was tracking "as many as three dozen" camps in the city currently.

"Some of them are abandoned," he said. "Some of them are small. Some of them are getting large. There are probably health hazards associated with them ... sharps, concerns … we're doing our best to monitor that."

The city is juggling a slew of social issues beyond the new coronavirus pandemic including drugs, domestic violence, and other issues, with Osgood likening the experience of leading the state's third largest community police force to being a Stretch Armstrong action figure — pulled in many different directions. The homeless issue is not one exact problem that can immediately be fixed, he said. Historically, the camps always reopen in the city not long after the cold weather shelter closes.

At the same time, 2019 appeared to be a busier than normal year for homeless campers, Osgood said.

The camps along I-93, which stretches close to a mile, have received an increasing amount of complaints during the past two years from residents and business interests, Osgood said. "Some degree of action," he said, needs to be taken, at some point, pandemic or not.

"We are also seeing the population showing up in public spaces that are creating nuisances," Osgood said. "We are pulled in every direction but it is something we are going to have to address."

Public Health Hazards

Part of the public nuisance is fires at the camps due to the dry weather, which, while they may not be increasing in actual numbers via data, still create a potential health hazard for the public and firefighters.

After hearing of several smoke investigations and fires near homeless camps around the city, specifically, firefighters being called to investigations on Constitution Avenue underneath the I-393 bridge and along the woods of North Main Street, under the Water Street bridge, behind the liquor commission building on Storrs Street, and other locations, Patch requested timeline data between mid-February and mid-May for 2019 and 2020 to see if there was an increase in calls this year compared to last year.

Guy Newbery, the city's interim fire chief, said most of the outside fires during the late winter and early spring have been bark mulch blazes due to very dry conditions — although firefighters have gone to fires at homeless camps, too.

"While we have had several small fires related to the camps," Newbery said, "they do not represent a large increase and even those are somewhat weather related."

Several members of the Concord community have reached out to city officials and police offering their services to help clean out some of the camps — without realizing the underlying dangers to the public at-large. Beyond the squalor, dangerous conditions can often be found including used needles at some of the sites. At the same, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised, homeless people are in less of a danger of contracting the new coronavirus by being out of the general population or exposed to others in shelters, even if that is not an ideal living situation.

Osgood confirmed offers from members of the community but dissuaded them from getting involved due to the public safety issues and the need for hazardous material coordination. He estimated the clean up along the highway could cost tens of thousands of dollars due to the hazards and time it would take to clear out.

During a recent clearing along the Merrimack River in Manchester, city, state, and private interests, all protected by hazmat gear, where involved in the cleanup for a number of days.

Before the pandemic, community and business interests pitched signage and promotion by the state to get tourists heading to the mountains and lakes to get off at Exit 14 as part of a "Concord is a destination city" strategy in the wake of spending $14 million on a revamped downtown. The blight of homeless camps on both sides of the Interstate, many community members privately said, does not lend itself to attract tourists to take time to frequent the businesses and restaurants in the capital city on their way up and down the highway.

Clearing and thinning the wooded area along the highway to discourage camping is a strategy that could be considered since the city has had success with this strategy in the past.

Back in 2013, after the arrest of a homeless camper along Storrs Street who was accused of murder in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2009, the city took action, purchasing the property between the Holiday Inn and the Friendly Kitchen and cleared the area of campers, bushes, and debris. Since that time, there have been no campers in the area — there is no place for them to camp with privacy, although homeless people do congregate and walk to and from the Friendly Kitchen on Constitution Avenue for meals. There are plans to expand Storrs Street on both sides, too.

When there were issues of hooking up in Terrill Park off Exit 13 years ago, the brush and trees were thinned and removed and, poof, many of the issues disappeared. A riverfront park is being constructed there now.

No one can answer directly why the area between Exit 13 and Exit 14 along I-93 cannot be cleared in a similar fashion as Storrs Street and Terrill Park beyond the fact that it is work to coordinate multiple landowners, not unlike the arena issue years ago, to get on the same page.

"There's a lot of people that need to be included on that," Osgood said, adding, "There is a lot to be said for landscaping."

Outreach To The Homeless

Jeffrey Stewart, the city's Project FIRST director, who works with both fire and police, has been performing outreach to the homeless community to understand what the underlying problems are and the conditions of some of the campers.

Stewart has been the director for about a year and focused, initially, on outreach to leaders in the community, and individuals and families on the brink, dealing with substance abuse and intervention. Data collection, and awareness to the problems for first responders and members in the community, were also in the mix. With all the initial meetings accomplished, he has moved onto homeless outreach, too.

In late May, Stewart began walkthroughs at some of the camping sites, speaking directly to people in crisis who have hit rock bottom, since they are all connected: substance use disorder, homelessness, and mental health.

"It's this trifecta we are constantly struggling with," Stewart said. "This constant trifecta. Those three pieces feed off each other. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? That's not for me to decide; I'm just here to help."

Part of the education and information gathering process is collaboration. On the day Stewart was interviewed, an emergency services technician and housing coordinator tagged along to tackle two of the three pieces together. He said part of the increase of encampments is "the time of the year," and the winter shelter being closed.

The support network for some was lost during the COVID-19 pandemic when the school setting structure, which allowed intermediaries to keep an eye on children of homeless families, ended. The minute schools closed and remote learning kicked in, that connectivity was lost.

At the same time, Stewart said, he had half a dozen success stories with recovery — with a report due this summer. Also, in February, his grant was approved to expand beyond Concord into other capital region communities — which will help him stay busy although the pandemic has put a damper on that expansion.

Dispelling Myths About Concord's Homeless

One myth about homelessness in Concord is the theory that many of them are families who have lost their apartments or homes, were part of the community before losing everything, and are now living in cars.

While there are homeless families living in cars, most of the city's homeless population do not fit that description — even though there is not an exact number. Often, they came to the city from another location in the state or country. As well, they are often actively self-medicating with substances or alcohol and either fail to control their substance abuse or take responsibility for their actions to right their personal course, officials confirmed. Still, many others, are couch surfing, or staying at the McKenna House or other shelters.

Stewart said, as part of the FIRST position, he knew of between 30 and 40 homeless people in the city directly who were living out of vehicles but were not families but single people.

Getting an accurate count of the situation is very challenging, according to Ellen Groh, the executive director of the Concord Coalition to End Homelessness, which runs the cold weather shelter and resource center, because of the transient nature of homelessness.

In 2018 though, there were 513 "unique individuals" at the center and 621 in 2019. Some guests show up once and others use the center across a period of time, she said. In 2019, Groh said, about 53 people per day utilized the center — up from 37 daily the year before. This year, the winter shelter housed between 30 and 35 people per night, she said, with some nights fuller than others.

Although the shelter is closed, the resource center is available for the city's homeless — allowing them to charge their phones, do laundry, have coffee, and take showers. The shelter recently expanded its hours for those in need; Groh noted that many of the places the homeless go like the Concord Public Library and other locations have been closed. Although some locations, like Dunkin' Donuts, are starting to reopen.

Whether or not there were more homeless or more camps, Groh could not speak to specifics. But even with couch surfers, many people did not want their homes crowded during the stay-at-home order, causing complications through the pandemic, she said.

In the four months of the economic collapse of the COVID-19 crisis, nearly 5,400 Concord residents have filed for unemployment claims, about 13 percent of residents. City and school officials are waiting for the latest tax payments to be assessed to see how many residents are going to miss their payments — potentially sending budgets into disarray.

Many of the homeowners and tenants who have not worked out arrangements with banks and landlords are being protected by a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures that will end July 1. From there, Groh said, the city may see an increase in the homeless population.

"The stress is enormous," she said. "The lack of access to treatment facilities, to housing … it's just way harder (than it was before) and I think that has a real effect on (the crisis)."

But long-term, Groh said, access to housing is the solution to the homeless camp problem.

"That is the way out of this," Groh said. "Short-term, affordable housing is one of the root causes of people being homeless. There isn't enough housing to get out of an encampment."

Currently, officials estimate that the city's housing and apartment vacancy rate is about 1 percent.

The market is tight due to a number of factors including the lack of new apartment construction; the lack of condominium construction at a price point that is accessible to most people in the city, about 30 percent of income; the lack of single-family home construction at a similar price point — something that is nearly impossible to do due to land and construction costs in New Hampshire; zoning laws and regulations in surrounding communities that do not allow for new construction — especially for housing that might include families with children ... that zoning is kept in place to keep school costs down; and competition for apartments and housing at the same time none are being constructed.

Close to 3,000 net new residents have moved to the city during the past 20 years, according to Census data. Between the 2000 and 2010 Census, around 2,000 people moved into the city, according to data published on Patch in 2011. The current estimated Census for the city in 2018 is about 700 more since then — with only one major apartment building, at the Penacook tannery site, beginning to be constructed during that time.

Got a news tip? Send it to tony.schinella@patch.com. View videos on Tony Schinella's YouTube channel.

This article originally appeared on the Concord Patch