PORTLAND – Five homeless men with alcohol abuse problems drowned in Portland Harbor this summer, prompting police and social service workers to meet recently with others who are at risk to urge them to use caution near the city’s waterfront.

“We really care about them and there’s been too many deaths,” said Donna Yellen, community initiatives and advocacy coordinator for the nonprofit social service agency Preble Street. “It is very dangerous.”

The deaths appear to be accidental, the consequence of people losing their balance near the water’s edge and being unable to swim to safety.

“There’s nothing to support that these deaths are suspicious. They all look like accidental drowning,” said Portland police Cmdr. Vern Malloch.

Police teamed up with Preble Street, the city’s Oxford Street shelter and the Milestone Foundation, which operates an emergency shelter and detoxification program on India Street, to host meetings with those most at risk.

The group met with 26 men and one woman at the Milestone Shelter last week, just as the people who had stayed there overnight were preparing to leave.

The shelter made breakfast and the advocates and officers asked for input.

One man described how he had fallen into the harbor once, but was saved because it was low tide and the water was only 3 feet deep.

“They talked a lot about the need to look out for each other,” Yellen said. “When they’re having a hard time, get them out of the waterfront area.” One man noted how he used money from returnables to pay for a taxi to Milestone for another man who was dangerously intoxicated.

Leonard Howard, sitting on a downtown park bench Friday, said he doesn’t frequent the waterfront but agrees people should help one another.

“To watch out for somebody’s back, I think it’s good,” he said.

Randy Allen Place was sitting next to him, sipping from a 40-ounce beer. He said he attended the meeting at Milestone and said it was nice to know somebody cares.

Officials walk a fine line when preaching the dangers of the waterfront.

“We don’t want them to feel like they have to go to even more isolated areas, because then it’s even more dangerous,” Yellen said. But at the same time, police or security will roust them from busier areas like the city’s parks or its business district.

“It’s an attractive environment for them because they get left alone,” Malloch said of the waterfront. But it’s hazardous.

“It’s a working waterfront. There’s no railing. You walk to the edge and 20 feet down is the water,” he said. “You might hit a boat on the way down, you might not.”

On average, two or three homeless men drown in the harbor each year. The high number this summer was alarming to advocates, though it got little attention in the broader community.

“This is a population that does not have a loud voice in the community,” Malloch said. “They’re seen negatively. If it had been five youths, there would have been a community uproar.”

Although the waterfront deaths are not considered suspicious, that doesn’t mean homeless people with substance abuse problems aren’t victimized, Yellen said.

“Tragically, we do know that there are incidents where people are assaulting these guys,” she said.

Yellen recounted one highly publicized incident in which a fight led to two homeless men being tossed into the icy waters of the Fore River in January.

The same advocates who met with the homeless last week plan to meet in the future with fishermen who work the waterfront, asking them to watch for anyone who might be in danger of falling in.

An alternative to calling police or an ambulance is using the Homeless Outreach & Mobile Engagement Team, or HOME Team. It operates a van that people can call to help someone who is too drunk to help themselves.

 

Staff Writer David Hench can be contacted at 791-6327 or at: dhench@pressherald.com

 

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