Photo by Ben McCanna

Police Maj. Jason King rouses a sleeping man as city workers load a dump truck with items from an encampment along the Bayside Trail in Portland in May.

Photo by Ben McCanna

A homeless man who asked to not be identified carries a mattress away from an encampment at the Fore River Parkway Trail in September as Portland police and city employees clear the area.

Photo by Ben McCanna

Amber Lesperance, whose left leg is swollen from an infection, packs up her belongings inside  her tent  near the Fore River Parkway. The city cleared the encampment in September.

Photo by Ben McCanna

Desirae Rowe mixes powdered methamphetamine with bottled water in a syringe before injecting it while sitting alongside Somerset Street in Portland on Nov. 1.

Photo by Ben McCanna

City workers clear detritus from a homeless encampment alongside the Bayside Trail in May while Paul Hooper, bottom center, smokes a cigarette and ties shopping carts together to fill with his belongings. Hooper, 42, had been camping in the area since December and has been homeless for 18 years. He said he didn’t know where he would go next.

Photo by Ben McCanna

Jennifer Velez, 38, who has been homeless on and off  since she was 14, sweeps along the curb on Somerset Street after packing up her belongings before city workers cleared  the area at the start of November. Velez moved later in the day to another homeless encampment along Commercial Street near the Casco Bay Bridge.

Photo by Brianna Soukup

A section of the homeless encampment under the Casco Bay Bridge off of Commercial Street in Portland on November 9.

Photo by Derek Davis

Guadalupe Hernandez, 51, takes shelter in a tent while her husband sleeps. The couple came from Colorado to work in Maine. As of February, they had been sleeping in a tent for two months. “It has been like hell”, she said.

Photo by Ben McCanna

Desirae Rowe, 35, stands wrapped in a blanket on Somerset Street in Portland on a cold November morning. Rowe had just left a homeless encampment on Marginal Way, which was being cleared by workers from MaineDOT and the city of Portland.

Photo by Ben McCanna

Sharon Procino, 42, pushes a shopping cart full of her belongings after leaving the homeless encampment on Bayside Trail in Portland on May 15. Procino, who has been homeless for about 20 years and had been camping along the trail for the past two weeks, said she hoped to find shelter at Florence House in the city’s West End. If that did not work out, she was not sure what she would do next. “We do matter,” she said of the homeless population, “but it’s hard to feel that way.”