William Nadeau in the woods where he has been living since the summer in Portland. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

It’s been six months since William Nadeau said he was kicked out of Portland’s homeless shelter for fighting.

Since then, he’s been living in the woods behind the building in Riverton. He said police have given him notice to move multiple times, but he hasn’t left those woods, he’s just gone to different spots.

In the time Nadeau’s been sleeping out there, his leg has become infected. It’s swollen with edema so badly that he can’t fit it through his pants and has trouble walking. He said he spends most of his days lying in his tent in pain, huddling close to his heater.

William Nadeau walks his bike back to his tent Friday in Portland. Nadeau has been unhoused since 2016 and has been living in the woods near the Homeless Services Center since the summer. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

Once, he said, when he wasn’t able to carry his stuff out of the woods, police threw away his things, including tools and his ID, stuff that was important to him.

“I have nothing. All I got is a piece of plastic over my head,” Nadeau said during an interview on Thursday afternoon. “The police keep hounding me for camping, but I’m not camping – this is where I live. I’m just trying to live.”

Unlike last winter, when hundreds of tents were up around the city and officials moved more slowly to clear them, the city has taken a different approach this season, telling people they need to move anytime a tent is reported. They say this is because there are more shelter beds open.

Under a 2022 policy, the city can remove tents with 24 hours’ notice as long as there are beds available in the city shelter. Last year, the shelter was often full, meaning the city couldn’t tag and clear tents. City spokesperson Jessica Grondin said there have consistently been between 10 and 20 beds open at the shelter for the last few months.

William Nadeau holds an old notice for removal he found at the site of a previous encampment in Portland. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

But not everyone can – or wants to – go to the city shelter.

For people like Nadeau who are unwilling or unable to stay in a shelter, the city and local service providers have struggled to find ways to support them. And without significantly more funding and community support, they say, that’s unlikely to change.

A COMPLICATED PROBLEM 

Nadeau, 57, said he has been homeless since 2016. He’s lived out of a car. He’s camped outside City Hall. He’s stayed in encampments. And finally, in June, he was able to get a bed at the homeless services center in Riverton.

The large facility has 258 beds. It serves hot meals every day, and there are showers and laundry. Housing navigators help guests apply for vouchers and find apartments. A clinic offers wound care, counseling and treatment for substance use disorder. Nadeau said he felt optimistic that the place might be a step in the right direction for him.

But he still struggled. He said staff referred to him and other guests as “animals.” He said his things were thrown away when he missed curfew one night. Overall, the place had “a terrible atmosphere of anger and discontent,” he said.

A small encampment in the woods in Portland. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

However, city officials and advocates have praised the shelter as a valuable resource for homeless people. Some have successfully moved into long-term housing with the help of staff.

In July, when he’d been at the shelter for about a month, Nadeau said another person staying there got violent with him and he fought back. He said he isn’t allowed back for a year.

Nadeau said he’s gone back multiple times begging to be let back in. He’s asked for food and to use the showers but said he’s been repeatedly turned away.

Grondin would not comment on Nadeau’s specific circumstance because of concerns about confidentiality but said in an email that the shelter has a responsibility to keep all of its guests safe. The shelter director wasn’t available for an interview Friday to talk about these allegations.

“Our staff work tirelessly all year long to provide emergency shelter services,” Grondin wrote. “They can’t be everything to everybody and they have to keep the rest of the guests safe.”

William Nadeau looks at a city truck filled with things from encampments in the woods near the Homeless Services Center in Portland on Friday, December 6, 2024. (Staff photo by Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer) Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

Between the city’s shelter for asylum seekers, the family shelter and the homeless services center, Portland provides shelter for about 600 people every night. Grondin said the shelter uses a “progressive discipline” approach in which guests are given warnings and multiple opportunities to improve their behavior before they are kicked out.

“Longer term restrictions in the form of criminal trespass orders are used as a last resort for violence and threats of violence against staff or other guests,” she wrote.

EVERYTHING TO EVERYONE

Mayor Mark Dion said the city has been working for the past year to make sure large encampments don’t spring up. He said police and outreach workers post notices at camps and try their best to engage the people living in them, but ultimately it’s a priority for the city to make sure encampments don’t proliferate again in Portland.

“We don’t excuse alcoholics from drunk driving and I don’t excuse people from defecating, abandoning needles, engaging in open-air drug consumption on the street either,” said Dion. “Yes, we move them along, but they don’t want to go to shelter. And the fundamental problem is that they don’t want to go anywhere with rules.”

Dion said he has fielded consistent complaints from business owners and residents who are fed up with the homelessness crisis impacting their neighborhoods.

William Nadeau walks past the No Trespassing sign in front of where his old encampment was in Portland. Nadeau said he lost many of his things in the encampment sweep that took place there about a month ago. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

Henry Myer, Preble Street’s director of street outreach and its Elena’s Way shelter said that continually moving people along is traumatic and disruptive. He said it slows down the process of getting them into housing because they are thrown again and again into crisis management.

But he said the question of how aggressively tents should be removed is a distraction from a bigger problem: there are not enough beds for everyone. Even with the city and private organizations providing hundreds of shelter beds a night, it’s not enough.

Myer estimated that about 100 people are living outside in Portland. The city tent tracker reported 39 tents in the city as of Friday afternoon. Dion said that 12 tents were removed from city property in the past week and 788 tents have been removed so far this year.

“I do think the city as a government and we as a community have a responsibility to answer the question, where can these people be? Where can they go?” Myer said.

NOWHERE TO GO 

Myer said there are people who will never be able to stay in the city shelter because of its size and some of the rules they have in place, including curfew and gender-separated dorms. He’d like to see a shelter option with fewer rules, where staff are trained to handle the behaviors that often accompany chronic homelessness, but he said funding and community support are consistent obstacles.

“This is going to keep happening until we answer some bigger questions,” said Myer. “People are going to keep going through this hardship.”

A tent set up next to the 295 on-ramp off of Forest Avenue in Portland on Thursday. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

On Friday, Nadeau woke up with a laminated orange notice tied to his tent. It said he would have to clear out by 9:50 a.m. Saturday or his things would be removed.

He said he was planning to move farther into the woods. He doesn’t have a car. He doesn’t have relatives he can stay with. He isn’t allowed back in the shelter until July. He said someone once suggested to him that he just leave Portland.

“They told me to cross the border,” he said. “But then I’d just be Westbrook’s problem or Saco’s problem. There’s still nowhere for me to go.”

William Nadeau carries his bike back to where his tent is. Nadeau said it was stolen from him a few days before. He spotted it under a tarp near an older encampment. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald