City Officials Order The Removal of at Least Five Homeless Camps in Auburn, Maine

According to WGME 13, several homeless camps in the city of Auburn, Maine were torn down on Wednesday morning.

The move by city leaders, and executed by Auburn's Public Works and Police Department, comes after multiple, and seemingly random, attacks by young people in the city on homeless people.

Some of the people that have been experiencing homelessness in Auburn were told by police that this move was due in part to the violence that has been going on targeting the city's homeless population. Though some people disagree that's the real reason.

An Auburn man named Toby who has been homeless for quite sometime spoke with WGME 13 and told them in part;

"They literally came in with an excavator and freakin’ mowed my whole campsite down, They’re targeting the homeless. They think that if they get the homeless out, the problem will be solved. It seems more like they’re going after the victims of these attacks, instead of going after the kids that actually did it. They dug holes specifically so I can’t rebuild. Now I got to figure out what I’m got to do with all that crap, you know. I have no place to go. I work. I don’t bother anybody. Can’t find housing. So that’s why I don’t have a house or a place to stay. So I stay here."

According to WGME 13, Auburn's Assistant City Manager, Brian Wood, says that the planned removal of these multiple homeless encampments was planned 'long before' any of the attacks on the city's homeless population.

The question now remains, where will the people that were staying in these camps along the Little Androscoggin River go? Many feel like that particular spot was already their last resort of finding somewhere in the city to stay.

We will continue to update this story as more information becomes available.