Condo complex without heat pushing for Prince George's police to clear out homeless

PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, Md (7News) — As 7News first reported two weeks ago, there has been no heat in half of the 200 apartments in the Marylander Condo community in Langley Park since the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

This leaves residents like Linda Barber and her son, Chris, with no choice but to wear winter clothes indoors.

“Gotta stay warm somehow,” said Chris on Dec 12.

The county has also condemned many units.

Now the head of Quasar Real Estate, the management company hired by the struggling condo association, said before any repairs can be made, before he can secure loans for long-overdue renovations in the run-down buildings, police need to clean out a homeless encampment and alleged open air drug market bordering the property. He said that is the source of many of the current problems.

“Without that encampment, I can move forward and make some repairs and improve the overall association, but right now, over the past eight months, every penny we’ve spent to make repairs has been undone by vandalism from that encampment,” Ken Brown, the CEO, said.

Brown said a prime example of the problems the trespassers are causing is what happened in the boiler room of the complex. He said homeless people broke in and stole equipment and vandalized the system to the point it caused pipes to burst in most of the buildings, leaving half of the units without heat.

“What I need the police to do is clean up that encampment. I’ve tried fixing the cameras. I tried fixing the doors, but they just come behind me, and they vandalize it,” Brown said.

A Prince George’s Police spokesperson now says that after top commanders met with Brown on Monday, they will work to clear out the encampment and provide shelter for those who need housing.

Brown said that’s all he and his condo owners are asking for.

“It’s 200 unit owners who are low-income, hard-working people, who would like to have a house — a roof over their heads — and they’re spending money. They want to have a nice place to live,” Brown said. “But when you have the people who are ten feet off your property coming in and taking what little you have — at some point it becomes untenable.”