A balloon floats over the parking lot at the Pine Tree Shopping Center. Lowe’s is bustling with customers leaving with home-improvement supplies in their pickup trucks and SUVs.

Just beyond the garden center’s shrink-wrapped pallets of mulch and landscaping stone, a narrow dirt pathway borders a field of overgrown weeds and winds around a large boulder, into a stand of trees.

This has been 5-year-old Arianna’s home for the past month.

Her mother, Chrissy Chavez, and Chavez’s boyfriend, Troy Jethro, moved Arianna to Portland from Florida with the promise of jobs and a new start. Instead, they said, a series of setbacks left them broke and homeless. The jobs fell through. The apartment they’d just moved into was sold, and they were evicted.

They first took Arianna to the city’s crowded homeless shelter, while they waited for their housing voucher to be processed.

Portland is the only community in Maine or New Hampshire with a policy of not turning anyone away from its shelters. But the chronic overcrowding has meant that people who didn’t get a floor mat at the primary shelter had to go to a nearby office building, where they’d sit in chairs all night.

The family was sent to the office one night. Troy was upset that Arianna could not lie down. He made a video in the shelter, violating rules intended to protect privacy. He was caught, and he refused to delete the video. He was issued a criminal trespass order, so he couldn’t return to the shelter.

The family was told about a homeless encampment that had existed for years near the Westbrook line.

Some call it Pine Tree Camp. Others call it Tent City.

They call it home.

Troy talks on the phone with a Department of Health and Human Services social worker who has been trying to help them find a place to live while Chrissy and Arianna eat lunch. The family moved to Portland from Florida at the beginning of July for a fresh start and to get Troy away from the temptation to relapse into drug abuse. Once they arrived in Maine, the job he thought he had fell through, the apartment they thought they had was sold, and they wound up on the street. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

12 P.M. MONDAY

The balloon floats farther from Lowe’s as the family emerges from the woods behind the store.

Arianna stands on top of the boulder, behind her 38-year-old mother. The child has blond hair, chubby cheeks and blue-green eyes. Below a purple dress, her tanned feet are cushioned by a pink flip-flops, soiled by their summer “adventure,” as Chrissy calls it.

Troy, whom Arianna calls “Daddy,” even though she has known him only for a year and a half, hangs back. The 34-year-old man is shirtless. “Hundred Percent Cracker” is scrawled across his chest, one of multiple tattoos. He says he got it in the Sunshine State while he was serving a prison sentence there on felony drug charges.

Arianna follows her parents up the trail.

Their campsite sits apart from the dozens of others scattered through the woods. It’s on the crest of a hill, overlooking a field that empties into an industrial area with single-story warehouses. The rush of Maine Turnpike traffic can be heard in the distance.

Arianna runs to the family’s three-person tent. It’s wrapped in a blue tarp large enough to form a virtual porch. Salvaged boards support the makeshift shelter.

She sits down and begins fiddling with an unopened tube of body wash. It serves little purpose here in the woods, where water is scarce.

A torn blanket hangs off a limb of a pine tree to shield their “bathroom” from the rest of the woods. Occasionally the odor of urine wafts through the campsite on the humid breeze.

They apologize for the mess. They don’t usually live this way, they say. They just happen to have fallen on hard times.

At the same time, they can’t stay here much longer. The police had been getting complaints about the encampment, which is on private property, and set a deadline for its occupants to leave.

Troy reaches for the toothpaste to prevent Arianna from trying to open it with her teeth. Arianna thinks of Troy as a father and he sees her as his daughter. Troy often reminds Arianna, “Even though you are living in the woods that doesn’t mean you have to act like it.” Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

Arianna runs up to Troy with a toothbrush.

“Daddy, can I brush my teeth?” she asks.

“We don’t have any water,” Troy explains. “We need water to rinse your teeth.”

Still, living in the woods is an adventure the 5-year-old girl often seems to enjoy.

“We’re trying to make it fun for her,” Chrissy says.

Chrissy says her greatest fear is having her child taken from her.

The family says news coverage of the police department’s move to evict the occupants of Tent City included images of Arianna and prompted more than a hundred complaints to the state asking that the child be taken from the family.

But the coverage also produced some benefits. They got an impressive donation from a tall, burly, tattoo-covered man with long hair.

They called him “Armageddon Guy,” because he had convinced himself that the world was going to end. He stocked up on survival items. Iodine tablets to treat water. Solar-powered headlamps and radios. A North Face tent. Sleeping bags. A generator. Gas burners. Knives, and more.

They say Armageddon Guy had used a lot of drugs. When he sobered up, his delusion dissipated. He saw the news stories about the homeless family camping behind Lowe’s. He found them and gave them his stuff, they say.

The mayor visited the campsite. So did a state social worker, who helped them navigate the state’s welfare labyrinth.

As the deadline to clear Tent City approaches, the family is close to getting an apartment, although not in Portland. The apartment is in Auburn, which has more housing available for low-income families.

Chrissy and Troy often just wait for the family’s phone to ring. Their Android has a broken screen and the battery frequently runs out. They charge it in a nearby laundromat.

Soon after the tour of their camp, Chrissy gets a call from the property manager of the apartment they hope to rent. She rolls her eyes.

“They need one more reference,” she says in a tired, raspy voice.

7 P.M. MONDAY

The family huddles around a small fire with a neighbor, a man who has been living behind Lowe’s for five years in a camp with a vegetable garden and a pet cat. The neighbor pitches a ball to Arianna, who hits the ball with a stick, more than she misses.

Troy stares into the fire, smoking a cigarette. He talks about his past and admits it’s “pretty ugly.”

Arianna grabs Troy’s hand to get his attention while they wait for news outside of the property management company’s office in Lewiston. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

He grew up in Brevard County, Florida, started taking pills when he was 15. He progressed to crack and cocaine. In 2010 police raided his apartment. He was found guilty of cocaine-related charges, resisting arrest, possession of drug paraphernalia and violating probation. A year later he was found guilty of robbery without a weapon, reckless driving and resisting arrest.

He spent three years in prison. His mother died two months into his sentence. He tattooed a memorial to her on his arm.

Troy thinks everything happens for a reason. “It was time for her to go home and time for me to grow up,” he says.

He met Chrissy through a mutual friend, and he bonded with Arianna. “If it weren’t for that little girl, Chrissy and I wouldn’t probably be together.”

Troy says he quit the hard drugs, toughing out the sickness of withdrawal. Chrissy says he used marijuana to help with the nausea. They occasionally use it still. They left Florida to increase Troy’s chances of staying clean.

Back by the fire, Troy shows off his pet, a regal jumping spider, which he keeps in a plastic container. “I seen spider fights go for $1,000 in the canteen in prison,” he says.

Arianna, who has been coloring on a piece of lined white paper, shows off her drawing, on which she has written her own name.

Arianna hugs Chrissy for warmth on a chilly morning at the Portland campsite known as Tent City. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

7 A.M. TUESDAY

Arianna emerges from the tent in colorful, mismatched pajamas. Groggy, she wraps her arms around herself to keep warm and darts over to give her mother a hug.

The couple needs coffee. Chrissy and Arianna walk out of the woods and along a strip mall to get to Brighton Avenue, where morning commuters stream to work.

Arianna waves at a school bus. She should be starting kindergarten with the other kids.

She skips along, chatting to herself. The sound of the traffic overpowers her soft voice.

She knows to take the path behind Motel 6 and across the parking lot to get to the gas station. Chrissy pours two coffees and grabs two muffins. Customers glance suspiciously. Arianna wants a coffee, too, but gets only a pastry. Donated money pays for the modest spread.

On the walk back, Chrissy opens up about her past.

Born and raised in Michigan, she had two kids with her high school sweetheart by the age of 23. He was killed during a robbery when the children were toddlers. “Wrong time, wrong place,” she said.

She moved to Brevard County, Florida, looking for a new start. She says she lost her job there after it was outsourced to China. She hopes to go back to school to become a social worker.

Her 17-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter went to live with her mother when she was struggling. They’re still in Florida, and they don’t know about Chrissy’s troubles in Maine.

She got married in Florida, but then she met another man and got pregnant with Arianna. While pregnant, she got into a fight with Arianna’s father and was arrested on a domestic violence charge.

Troy brushes Arianna’s hair to put it up in a bun at their campsite. Troy says that Arianna likes when he does her hair because he doesn’t pull on it as much as her mom. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

10 A.M. TUESDAY

A state social worker visits the campsite. It’s a day before police plan to clear the illegal encampment.

The social worker gives the family more details and contact information about the apartment in Auburn, which he found through a personal contact.

The couple brightens with hope. Troy had worked on-and-off in Portland through an employment agency. He is eager to get back to work and hopes that his experience in building maintenance will come in handy to his new landlord.

The social worker has spent the better part of a week working to qualify them for a housing voucher and find them a place to live. He says he believes the girl is being well cared for, under the circumstances. A state caseworker would have to decide that Arianna’s safety is at risk before any attempt is made to break up the family.

Their housing voucher is intended for people with psychiatric disabilities. Chrissy says she suffers from depression and anxiety, and has been off her medication for more than a week because her medical records had been sent to a Lewiston clinic. Now she struggles to keep her emotions in check.

The next few days will be pivotal for the family, but their social worker – their most effective advocate – is scheduled to go on vacation. They will now work directly with the landlord.

“We’re crossing our fingers and crossing our toes,” the social worker says, before walking back down the narrow dirt pathway to the Lowe’s parking lot.

Arianna is reminded of her toothbrush when she spies a large jug of water the family had gotten the previous night. She applies toothpaste and brushes her teeth.

She delivers a hairbrush and scrunchy to Troy. He brushes her long hair and twists it into an impeccable bun.

“Now, how about you go get some clothes that match?” he says.

Matt Coffey, who has lived at the Portland encampment known as Tent City for five years, pats Arianna on the head as he walks by her. Many of the other people living at the encampment grew fond of the bubbly little girl. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

2 P.M. TUESDAY

The couple’s optimism fades as hours pass without hearing from the landlord. With the police deadline looming, they begin packing up their few belongings: bags of clothes, blankets, sleeping bags and the stuff Armageddon Guy had given them.

Waiting is a source of tension.

As the family eats lunch, Chrissy apologizes to a reporter for the mess and says they try not to eat at the campsite, because it’s dirty and there’s no place to wash their hands.

Arianna smiles when she recognizes the cartoon on her Happy Meal. “Talking Tom!”

Chrissy apologizes for Arianna’s appearance. Her hands are dirty. Her feet are black. Smudges of dirt dot her cheeks.

Troy gets frustrated. “Stop apologizing, Chris. We’re out in the middle of the woods. We’re not trying to impress anyone. She’s a kid. We’re not doing nothing wrong.”

Troy finally reaches the property manager by phone. They still need another reference. He’s crestfallen.

“At this rate, we’re definitely going to be out here tomorrow,” he says.

“I really didn’t want to be here for the eviction,” Chrissy says.

From left, Arianna, Roger Goodoak, Chrissy and Troy bring the family’s belongings out of the woods and into the Lowe’s parking lot to load into Goodoak’s van for their move up to the Lewiston-Auburn area. Goodoak runs a small nonprofit that helps homeless people. He has been helping Troy, Chrissy and Arianna since he saw Troy panhandling near Lowe’s. Troy got a call the night before from a state social worker who said he’d found a landlord in Lewiston who would accept their housing voucher and that they could move into an apartment. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

9 A.M. WEDNESDAY

The family has been up for an hour packing their belongings.

They had a restless night. With everyone under a police order to leave and gathering up what they could take, the family could hear arguments, threats and fights.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Arianna says, rubbing her eyes.

The family is still packing when Roger Goodoak meanders up the trail.

Arianna perks up. “Roger’s here!”

Goodoak, 61, heads a tiny nonprofit that helps homeless people. He has been helping this family since he saw Troy panhandling near the Lowe’s entrance a month ago. Today he’s here to help the family move.

It doesn’t take long for them to move their stuff to the parking lot, where Roger’s van awaits. Arianna picks up a kite and waves it back and forth through the air.

A homeless man who calls himself as “Uncle Nate” emerges from the woods to talk to the family. Arianna seems sad.

“We’ll come get Nate,” Troy tells her. “He can fly that kite with you.”

Moments later two Portland police cruisers pull up to Roger’s van. Four officers are about to make a sweep through the woods to remind campers to leave or they’ll be issued summonses or arrested. Arianna hides behind her mother.

Another camper emerges. She too wants to say goodbye to Arianna.

“We’ll see you around,” she says to the little girl. “We can still hang out.”

Arianna holds up her tiny pinkie. She wants a promise.

“I can’t make a promise,” she tells Arianna. “I don’t know if I can keep it.”

Before they leave, Chrissy reaches the property manager on the cellphone. They’re still not approved. Chrissy explains that police are clearing out Tent City.

“It’s me, my husband and my daughter with all of our stuff, and we have nowhere to go.” She is on the verge of crying.

Chrissy hangs up the phone and says they have to get to Lewiston.

“Please take care of our stuff while you’re driving!” Arianna shouts to the driver from the back seat.

Troy and Chrissy wait in Kennedy Park in Lewiston to hear from the property management company or the landlord. Upon arriving in Lewiston, they found out they had not been approved for an apartment in Auburn and that they might need more references. With the encampment in the woods in Portland no longer an option they had nowhere else to go. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

12:30 P.M. WEDNESDAY

Troy looks stern as he walks out of the property manager’s office in Lewiston. He grabs a pouch of tobacco and rolls a cigarette.

“So now we’re not approved,” he says, taking a drag. “This is getting really aggravating.”

“Where are we going, Daddy?” Arianna asks.

“I don’t know yet,” he replies.

“I’m about to Google the family shelter,” he says. “I guess we’re gonna go there.”

About 30 minutes later, the property owner arrives.

It’s Joe Dunne, an older man with graying hair and a reddish mustache. He owns hundreds of units in the Lewiston-Auburn area, mostly occupied by people on housing subsidies. He has been criticized by some tenant advocates as having substandard units and intimidating low-income tenants.

To this family, he’s their only hope.

A muscular maintenance man, standing at least 6 feet 6 inches tall, stands over Joe’s left shoulder as Joe speaks to the family.

“I’m not saying ‘No’ to you,” Joe says. “I need to check you out first.”

It’s hot and humid. The mood is tense.

Joe is concerned about the news reports coming out of Tent City, including one about a stabbing.

Chrissy sinks down and begins to cry after Joe Dunne, a landlord, broke the news to them that they had not yet been approved for an apartment and that he was concerned about renting to people from the Portland camp because of news coverage about a stabbing there. After speaking with Troy and Chrissy for awhile and meeting Arianna he decides to give them a chance and rent an apartment in Auburn to them. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

Chrissy crouches to the ground, throws her head into her hands and begins to weep.

As her mother cries, Arianna wears an expression of concern. She begins picking apart a Styrofoam coffee cup, letting the pieces fall to the ground. It takes a while for her distraught parents to realize what she’s doing.

“Don’t make a mess on this man’s property,” Troy says.

Still crouching, Chrissy drops to her knees and begins picking up the pieces. Joe assures them it’s not a problem. He looks admiringly at the little girl.

“Is this your daughter?” Joe asks, flashing a subtle smile. “I’m not judging your character at all. But we have a process.”

Troy tells Joe that he is eager to work. A few minutes later, Joe says he’s getting more comfortable with the family. The apartment still needs to be inspected, though.

“I’m not saying it won’t be today,” he says. “If it’s not 100 percent inspected today, I’ll put you up.”

The family is relieved. Joe suggests the family get lunch while he makes some calls.

“Are you broke?” Joe asks.

Chrissy says they won’t get their monthly welfare benefits until Thursday. Joe gives Troy a $20 bill.

2 P.M. WEDNESDAY

The family is still in limbo when Arianna spots a park.

“Did you know there’s a playground out there?” Arianna asks. “I want to go to the playground.” No one responds. “Please? Pretty please?”

Arianna plays for hours at Kennedy Park in Lewiston while her mother and Troy wait to hear if they will be able to move into the apartment in Auburn. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

Chrissy takes Arianna to the swing sets, while Troy charges his cellphone and waits for the next call.

“Look how high I’m going!” Arianna shrieks. She needs help slowing down. Her legs are not long enough to reach the ground.

She runs to the monkey bars, then to the climbing blocks.

She plays for nearly three hours as her parents grow more anxious.

“It’s getting late,” Troy says. “I need to know what I’m doing with my family. I have a kid who needs a bath.”

Joe finally calls. It will take another day for crews to change the carpet so the unit can pass inspection. He has gotten the family a room at the Motel 6, a few miles away.

Arianna turns on the TV in a Motel 6 in Lewiston where Joe Dunne, their landlord, put up the family for a night because the apartment wasn’t ready to move into. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

When Arianna walks in the motel room and sees the two large beds, her eyes widen. She climbs up and begins jumping up and down. After a few minutes, she lies down and rolls around on the clean blankets. She giggles. She’s excited to sleep in a real bed for the first time in over a month.

So are her parents.

“Civilization!” Troy says. “Much better than a tent.”

NOON THURSDAY

The family returns to the property manager’s office to sign a lease.

As they wait for the paperwork and carpeting to be finished, Joe emerges from a hair salon next to the office.

“She’ll give her a trim for school,” Joe says with a smile.

Arianna has never had a haircut before. Her blond hair reaches her lower back.

She’s nervous, but the stylist shows her an apron decorated with teddy bears and unicorns. The little girl smiles. Soon her hair is washed, conditioned and trimmed.

“It’s like a princess,” says stylist Sarah Bunnitt, as she reaches for a blow-dryer. “Let’s make it extra pretty now.”

Arianna picks two barrettes out of a gift basket. She grabs one with Winnie the Pooh and another with a fish. She also snags a teddy bear finger puppet and a piece of ring candy.

“She’s so cute,” Sarah says.

“I’m not cute,” says Arianna. She feigns a frown and then sticks out her tongue.

5:30 P.M. THURSDAY

Arianna grows restless. Chrissy takes her to a nearby playground.

Minutes later, Troy has a set of apartment keys in his hands. He clenches them tightly and pumps his fist in celebration.

Arianna and Chrissy face off after Arianna was acting up outside of their new apartment. Arianna wanted to go play in the park, but Chrissy and Troy needed to talk to the landlord. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

Arianna wants to stay at the playground. She cries.

“It’s a happy day, not a sad day,” Chrissy says to the weeping child.

It doesn’t take long to move the family’s few belongings into the apartment – two camping chairs, backpacks, two tents, air mattresses, a pile of blankets and a box of old pots and pans.

The common areas of the apartment building have an acrid odor, but their apartment is clean. It smells like a new rug and a fresh coat of paint. Their unit has a small kitchen with no window. It opens up into a large living room and two bedrooms.

“You got front of the house, baby,” Troy says, pointing toward Arianna’s bedroom.

“Yay!” says Arianna, carrying her pink backpack into her room. She pulls out a doll and brushes its hair.

Arianna unpacks her toys in her new bedroom. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

Chrissy stands quietly in the middle of the room.

“Wow,” she says softly. “It finally happened.”

Troy stows several items in a closet.

“Bye-bye, tents,” he says.

ONE WEEK LATER

The family prepares for Arianna’s first day of school.

Chrissy cooks pancakes in the kitchen. Troy sits in a camping chair in the middle of the room.

Arianna sits on the floor, playing with a toy train. She’s wearing a leopard-print shirt with a gold heart, black pants and a new pair of pink bunny sneakers with a fuzzy tail on each heel.

Chrissy brings Arianna a plate with a pancake, lathered in syrup, and sets it on the floor.

“I’m not hungry,” Arianna says.

“Just have a bite,” Chrissy pleads. “It’s your first day.”

Arianna takes a couple bites, then runs into her bedroom and jumps back into bed.

“You don’t want to be late on your first day do you?” Chrissy asks.

“Yes, I do,” Arianna insists.

Chrissy brushes Arianna’s hair in preparation for her first day of kindergarten. School had started the week before, when they were in the process of moving to Auburn. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

After getting her hair put into a ponytail, Arianna grabs a backpack bearing “Frozen” characters that the family got at Goodwill. She takes inventory: a notebook, a small pink stapler, pencils, erasers, markers and scissors. She zips up the pink and blue bag and hoists it onto her tiny back.

On the 10-minute walk to school, Arianna runs ahead of her parents. She stops, letting them catch up, before turning and running again.

“I’m faster than you,” she brags.

Her eyes widen when she sees the school playground. Her nerves take over as the family rounds the corner and she sees a group of parents and children lined up, waiting for the school doors to open.

Troy and Chrissy take turns with their broken cellphone snapping photos of Arianna. She makes a grumpy face to the camera.

Arianna eyes the growing number of children. She buries her face in her mother’s stomach and gives her a hug.

Chrissy crouches down, pulling Arianna closer. Her daughter softly confesses: “I’m really nervous.”

“It’s going to be OK. You’re going to make a lot of friends,” Chrissy says, as the door opens and kids begin filing into the school.

“Mommy, look!” She points toward the open door.

Chrissy holds the little girl’s hand and walks her to the door.

Arianna walks to school for her first day of kindergarten. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer