A group of about a dozen concerned community members rallied behind the Keene, N.H., Hannaford supermarket on March 14 to stop the eviction of the homeless encampment residents on the adjacent property. Protesters brought coffee and donuts to the remaining campers and prepared for an eviction defense that thankfully never came because of their collective action.
Local activist group Keene Mutual Aid organized the speak out against the planned eviction. Formerly Rural Youth Union, Keene Mutual Aid is an all volunteer group that operates a free “store” and community outreach to build connections and provide for the needs of low income and homeless people in Keene.
In early February, campers brought the eviction to the attention of KMA volunteers providing survival essentials during a cold snap. Campers said that social workers had come by to tell them that evictions were being planned for early April.
The encampment is on an expanse of forest and swamp land unusable for development projects and isolated from the rest of town by the Ashuelot River. For many years the owner of the plot of land, Ellis Robertson Corp and Realties Inc, had allowed homeless people to camp on the premises under the agreement that they would take care of accumulated trash.
The landowner recently passed responsibility to his daughter Kirstin McKeon, who has since been put under pressure from the local Hannaford supermarket to evict the people living behind their store, citing danger to their staff and customers without any meaningful evidence. The city also received pressure from Hannaford, which threatened to uproot their centrally located store from Keene altogether if the campers were not removed.
The city decided to move the eviction from early April to March 14, giving campers a week to either abandon their camps and go to a shelter or find a new space further from basic survival needs. Many people camping out across the city find the shelters unacceptable for a variety of reasons, and the wait list for housing is up to eight years. One of the campers is terminally ill and wishes to spend their last days in the woods, which they have lived in for the last two years.
In response to the change of the eviction date, KMA sent a letter on March 8 expressing outrage to the city government and outlining the demands of the campers: the allocation of a designated campground on city land. This was followed by a social media and email campaign, as well as two visibility rallies bringing around 30 protesters and the eviction defense on March 14.
The pressure campaign is ongoing and has gained traction with the public as well as some city councilmembers, who are discussing a potential proposal to establish a designated campground on city land. The local paper, Keene Sentinel, published two articles concerning the evictions. City Councilmember Bobby Williams, one of the authors of the proposal, reached out to organizers of KMA and told them their campaign is what made the proposal possible.
These actions also prevented the city from evicting other campsites without proper procedure, and halted the eviction scheduled for March 14. All of this was only possible because of the committed action of community organizers bringing people together to draw attention to the issue of homeless rights in the city of Keene.
