About 40 people gathered at the Hope House shelter in Bangor Thursday for an annual vigil honoring homeless community members who have died.
“As the temperature drops tonight, we are confronted with the reality of how dangerous and inhumane it is to expect people to sleep outside. We should not accept this as inevitable. We should not grow accustomed to it,” said Brittney Dunham, the senior director of social work for Preble Street, the organization that operates Hope House.
This year’s vigil fell on the eve of the deadline for a homeless encampment by the train tracks near the Penobscot River to disband. It’s been a trying year for Bangor’s homeless community and the service providers who work with them, as encampment residents are displaced, chronic homelessness grows statewide, and providers struggle to meet demand amid funding losses.
Speakers at the vigil emphasized the humanity of each community member who has been lost.
“We’re talking [about] a group of people that are often unseen, often not acknowledged, and mean a lot to us,” Dunham said.
One of those people was Dylan Smith, a Bangor resident who died in a 2021 fire on Union Street that killed three homeless men, including some who had recently relocated from a riverfront encampment the city had shut down. Smith was 31 and had been homeless for seven years.
Jim McCausland remembered Smith, with whom he grew up in Howland, at the vigil Thursday. He and his wife, Ashton McCausland, wrote Smith’s name on an ornament for a Christmas tree outside the shelter honoring homeless people who have died.
Ashton McCausland was homeless in Bangor for almost five years before getting sober and deciding she wanted to help others do the same, she said. She now works as a transitional housing navigator at the Hope House.
“I remember when I was trying to get sober, hearing people’s stories who were in the same situation and had gotten their life back, meant the world to me,” she said, reflecting on her experience helping others who have experienced homelessness and addiction.
People who are still living outside were also a focus of the event.
Dunham acknowledged the community members living in the railroad encampment and “the hundreds of people across this state who are still sleeping outside tonight. I feel a great sense of urgency and outrage that we are all here once again this year and probably for years to come,” she said.
The event represented a chance to reflect on the root causes of homelessness, according to Lori Dwyer, the president and CEO of Penobscot Community Health Care, which owns the Hope House.
“This is not about personal failings, and in so many ways, it’s about system failure,” Dwyer said.
Hope House is Bangor’s only low-barrier homeless shelter and the only one in Maine north of Waterville. It has been consistently full in recent months.
A team from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was in attendance at the vigil as the health experts wrapped up a three-week visit to assist with the response to an HIV outbreak that began in Penobscot County in 2023. The outbreak has primarily affected homeless residents and people who use intravenous drugs.
Amy West, a Penobscot Community Health Care nurse practitioner who provides primary care for homeless people and many of those who have tested positive for HIV, told attendees about the close relationships she’s formed with patients who “almost start to feel like family.”
“Every person that we’ve lost along the way inspires us to do better and do more for the people that we’re still working with,” West said.