Maryland, My Maryland

From the Free Bacon, ‘We’re Not Criminalizing the Unhoused’: How a Homeless Encampment and Drug Dealers Are Destroying a Local Condominium Complex and Turning Its Residents’ Lives Upside Down

The sign outside the Marylander Condominiums, a 200-unit complex in Prince George’s County, Md., describes it as a "private community."

But for members of a homeless encampment in the condo’s backyard, the complex also serves as a crackhouse, a bathroom, and the entrance to an open-air drug market, which has become a magnet for organized crime and caused millions in property damage.

Transients break into buildings and smoke crack in the stairwells. Tenants traversing the property must navigate needles, feces, and sleeping bodies as addicts nap half-naked in the hallways and sprawl themselves like welcome mats outside residents’ doors.

Half of the complex has gone without heat since Thanksgiving after vagrants allegedly vandalized the boiler room, causing pipes to burst in several buildings. Some units have lost electricity, too, due to the overuse of space heaters. Though the county instructed those without heat to "vacate immediately" in December, most have defied the order and tried to weather the cold. They say they have nowhere else to go. . . .

Long and short?  "Prince George’s County, Md, is going to court to evict legal residents over damage allegedly caused by the camp."