DPW Puts Final Touches On Cleanup Of Manchester Street Encampment

Manchester, NH - Manchester Department of Public Works trucks blocked off Manchester Street Thursday as workers pushed to get the final phase of the encampment removal completed.

Manchester Police were across from the Families in Transition shelter in case they were needed for the DPW workers. A few people from inside the fenced-in area where the greenhouse used to sit on the shelter property watched the cleanup but no one else was visible from the encampment that was removed Wednesday.

DPW workers swept the sidewalks while a truck with a hydraulic boom lifted the final piles of debris into the truck. Yellow police tape was left up lining the sidewalks and some signs saying “decriminalize survival” remained attached to signposts.

Privately owned property in the area was still littered with items left behind by people from the encampment, however, city workers did take larger items from those areas.

A storm is expected to bring 4 to 8 inches of snow Thursday afternoon, even before the official eviction notices people were told tents would be removed when a plowable snowstorm came.

Wednesday afternoon some of the final people leaving the encampment loaded shopping carts and were seen walking down the middle of Hanover Street toward Elm Street. Thursday morning one of those same people could be seen sleeping in front of a bar that has been closed down on Elm Street.

The City of Manchester suggested people that who didn’t have alternatives could stay at the Cashin Center on Wednesday night, it is unknown at this time how many people utilized those services.

The City also announced they will be opening the former bus station at Canal and Granite Street as a warming center and will renovate a commercial building at 39 Beech Street into a 24-hour shelter.