Belfast Police Chief Believes A Foul Campsite Is Connected To Group That Gave Out Tents To Homeless People

BELFAST, Maine — Leather boots. Milk jugs. Fast-food wrappers and pizza boxes. Soda bottles and Sterno cans. Clothes strewn about in heaps. Graffiti on trees. A bedraggled stuffed animal facedown in the dirt. And at least three graffiti-tagged tents, full of trash and covered in tarps — but still standing upright. That’s the derelict campsite a mushroom hunter discovered recently on private property next to the Stephenson Preserve in Belfast. Belfast Police Chief Mike McFadden blames the site on a grassroots effort this summer by concerned citizens and a city employee to give camping gear to people who needed temporary shelter. [The best this Maine city can offer people who become homeless is a tent and camping gear] “Where are all these tents coming from?