Residents of a homeless encampment in downtown Salem are facing removal Wednesday at the same time that the city is considering banning camping entirely.
The people who live there – and local advocates – say that the removal of the encampment will lead to displacement. They also argued that the proposed anti-camping ordinance will unfairly target homeless people.
“This is an extremist, anti-homeless ordinance created primarily to manufacture a crime that the unhoused can be found guilty of,” Witch City Action, a grassroots advocacy group, wrote on a website it created against the proposal.
“This will displace people from their jobs and support systems, impose significant barriers to obtaining life-saving and essential medications and put an already vulnerable population in significantly more danger,” the group continued.
On March 13, National Grid, which owns some of the land along the South River where the encampment has been for months, posted notices instructing the unhoused individuals to leave within two weeks.
“You are no longer welcome,” the notice reads. “The Salem Police Department is being forwarded a copy of this notification and has been requested that if you are found on the above-mentioned property, you will be arrested.”
Shannon Donovan, one of the people living in a tent along the South River, said in a statement shared by Witch City Action that she and the others living there had tried to keep the area clean to minimize the effects of the encampment.
But there was only so much they could do, she said.
Donovan said the city’s Department of Public Works had removed metal trash cans in the area, so they had nowhere to put trash.
She said they had been told a city worker would come by once a week to remove garbage if they kept it in a pile. But that lasted less than a month.
“It really hurts me to hear and know that people have been so quick and filled with anger, hate and judgement when a homeless person would be the first to help and protect,” Donovan said. “We are all just like one of these people demanding us to move. We don’t enjoy this painful struggle we try to live through each day either.”
Mayor Dominick Pangallo filed the ordinance on March 14. It would would prohibit camping on public property if there are shelter beds available within 15 miles.
According to the text of the ordinance, anyone violating the prohibition on camping will be offered a space in and transportation to emergency shelter as well as storage for their personal belongings.
Any property at the campsite not claimed within 24 hours will be removed.
Witch City Action, which held a rally outside City Hall Monday and planned another for Tuesday evening, said the 15-mile radius would include communities as far away as Boston, allowing the city to remove encampments even if there were no shelter beds available locally.
“If the shelter system were working as intended, campsites would not have to exist,” the organization wrote. “This implies that campsites are an alternative to the shelter system, as opposed to a direct result of its failure. Without addressing the underlying issues throughout the shelter system, this amendment brings into question if the unhoused have a right to any self-determination whatsoever.”
The City Council Committee on Public Health, Safety and Environment will discuss the ordinance at its next meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Neither Pangallo’s office nor National Grid responded to requests for comment Tuesday.
