A family was left terrified after a homeless encampment appeared in the backyard of their historic $800,000 home.
Robin Bach and her husband have had to deal with death threats from homeless people living in the woods on their property, just behind their stunning 19th-century Walker House in Concord, New Hampshire.
And those threats are far from empty: the Bachs (who have two children, ages eight and 11) heard gunshots coming from the camp in their backyard.
“I can’t even use my backyard. My kids can’t go out there,” Bach said. Concord monitorexplaining that they play on the sidewalk. “I would like my children to be independent and feel comfortable going out to play and they won’t do that.”
The couple bought the beautiful home in 2018 and gifted their children a backyard swing set in 2020. But its proximity to the violent homeless population nearby that refuses to leave has left the children too scared to touch it.
Bach has called the police 37 times since living in this neighborhood to report various encounters with the homeless population who live just a few feet from where everyone sleeps.
Several years ago, Bach’s husband had a disconcerting encounter with a man who they saw emerge from the woods in their backyard several times. When he asked the man to leave, the man threatened to shoot him.
Robin Bach, pictured, said her children can’t even use the backyard for fear of homeless people living in the nearby woods.
Pictured: Bach’s home, valued at nearly $800,000, is overrun by a growing homeless population
This same homeless man returned to her property several times after this, leading Bach to file a restraining order against him.
His children watched as the police took him away for the last time.
This comes as homeless numbers are on the rise across the country, especially in New Hampshire, where the number of people on the streets is increasing faster than anywhere else, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Last week, the Supreme Court ruled in a case from Oregon (its largest city and an epicenter for homelessness) that camping outdoors is illegal and cities can impose bans.
So far, the city of Concord and the police department have had their hands somewhat tied when it comes to clearing out the encampments near Bach’s and other people’s homes.
Police should work with shelters to ensure that certain homeless people are not on waiting lists for housing and services before dismantling these makeshift tent cities.
They also have to reach agreements with private owners.
Bach with his two children, who have resorted to playing on the sidewalk in front of the family home.
Aerial shots of the New Hampshire State House in Concord at sunrise on a foggy morning
“The city will not be clearing any private property,” said Barrett Moulton, deputy chief of patrol and police liaison on the city’s homeless steering committee.
Even if homeless people settle on a government-owned sidewalk or park, the cost to the city is a major factor.
“But if it’s city land then there’s a whole process and it’s often expensive,” Moulton said.
The Supreme Court’s decision on homelessness will do nothing about the costs associated with cleaning up litter and removing tents set up by homeless people, so it’s unclear how the ruling might affect future policies.
Bach is a progressive who has a great deal of empathy for people facing homelessness. And while she would like to see them off her property, she says she worries that evicting them will simply move the problem somewhere else and make it someone else’s problem.
“It’s like whack-a-mole. You can’t ask them to go away, because they’ll go somewhere else,” Bach said. “You have to give them somewhere to go.”
And the problem has only gotten worse since Bach moved into what should be his New England paradise, with five bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms and a manicured front lawn.
She said that when her family first moved in, there were usually one or two tents in the woods behind their house.
There are now at least half a dozen of them, some with large tarps and structures, he said.
And when police remove the tents from Bach’s backyard, people move back in days later, trash still piling up in the woods along their path.
On June 5 alone, this area was littered with crushed cans, abandoned clothing, shopping carts and broken furniture.
Trash and shoddy housing structures litter the woods behind Bach’s street in Concord
In front of the garbage there is a sign that says “no camping”
Some areas have so much trash that the grass and soil underneath are completely hidden.
To insulate himself from the growing trash, Bach tried to fence his property until he learned it would cost him a whopping $50,000.
Running out of options, Bach recently got a quote to fence his property.
It would cost you $50,000.
“I don’t have the money to clean it up. I can’t do it myself physically,” she said. “So the trash is still there.”
Moulton told the Concord Monitor that the large amount of trash and debris that has accumulated has been the main reason people are calling his office.
“It’s hard to get over the image of these camps,” he said.
“It’s a bad image. It’s a bad image for the city to have a beautiful area like Concord and have it be full of trash. That’s something that’s getting a lot of attention right now.”
Since there are few, if any, public trash bins in Concord, the litter problem will likely continue to be present in the city of about 44,000 residents.
“We have a pretty significant homeless problem,” Moulton said. “They’ll be out there somewhere.”
For Concord’s homeless population, this means camping outdoors in New Hampshire’s changing weather.
Winters typically bring snow and frigid temperatures of up to 12 degrees Fahrenheit, while this weekend will bring highs of over 90 degrees in Concord.
Bach, who has been forced to deal with the homeless problem literally in her own backyard, still has empathy for those without shelter. She urges the city to enact a sanctioned camping zone to get people back on their feet.
The Concord Coalition to End Homelessness operates the area’s only emergency shelter, and is only open from December through March.
The nonprofit strongly opposes the Supreme Court’s recent ruling and issues the following statement.
“Penalizing the most vulnerable citizens in our community because of the housing shortage in this country is unconscionable and will not solve the problem of homelessness,” they wrote. “The solution to ending homelessness is housing.”
While Bach has certainly had some terrifying encounters with the people trying to survive behind his home, he has spoken to some of them in an effort to understand their struggle.
Most recently, she spoke to a man who said he has a 9-to-5 job and cleans up his trash with contractor bags.
She believes it would be better if the city created a sanctioned camping area somewhere far from where she lives, as it has become clear to her that these people need a helping hand.
Sporadic police enforcement, she said, does not address the root cause of homelessness or permanently remove the tents, trash or occasional threats of violence her family has to endure.
“We never locked our doors. We did it quite naturally,” he said. “Now we have a complete security system.”
“This is the worst thing that has ever happened.”