Pictures of the Year International

Sarah Juliano, 38, facing, argues with Sarah Wallingford, 31, during a dispute about missing drugs at the homeless encampment they share in the South End of Waterville on Aug. 26, 2022. The two women met at the encampment. Juliano has been living in a homeless community in south Florida for the past 5 years to return to her hometown to be near her daughter and granddaughter. Wallingford is originally from the area and has been homeless since March. Sara Juliano made her way back to Maine after living in a large tent city in Florida. The nearly 1,500 miles of hitchhiking brought her to Waterville to be closer to her daughters. The life is the same though. Juliano, 41, arrived alone with nothing. She found an empty spot in a vacant tent in a homeless encampment on an island on the Kennebec River in central Maine. Juliano, at barely 5 feet tall and weighing maybe 100 pounds, was no stranger to homelessness. It’s been a part of her life for as long as she can remember. Independent and wise to the streets, she’s very capable of taking care of herself. She needs assistance, however, to inject herself with drugs. A friend has to perform that task. Soon after the colder temperatures arrived in October, Juliano was the first person to leave the encampment for a spot in the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter. Since she escaped the island, Juliano has been sober to the day this caption is being written. Her path from the clutches of addiction and poverty is improbable and an outlier. A bout with Covid that put her in the hospital for 30 days was enough for her detox from heroin, fentanyl and crack. She had a choice upon discharge from the hospital. Go back to her old life on the streets or enter a sober living program at Cory’s House. She chose the latter.