THERE’S PROBABLY not a lot to give thanks for when you are a homeless person. You may live your life in congregate shelter housing that, according to resident reports, is frequently infested with bedbugs.
LOWELL The tents and other temporary housing structures are gone from South Common Park, removed during the July sweep of the sprawling homeless encampment that stretched the length of Summer Street between Thorndike and South streets.
LOWELL Within hours it was over. The so-called Dog Park homeless encampment in Centralville off First Street Boulevard, that has existed in some form for 10 years, was gone. Not only gone, it was obliterated in a coordinated action by city services Monday morning.
Lowell’s city manager, Tom Golden, said the city plans to clean out the area in the coming days as the region continues to grapple with how to handle such encampments.
LOWELL Robert Waylein has lived in the so-called Dog Park camp for 10 years. For almost 4,000 nights, he has laid his head down in a shelter he built on land he says he cleaned and has maintained that used to function as an open-air garbage dump.