(Free Beacon)

At a town hall meeting on February 28, Devan Martin, the deputy chief of staff for Prince George’s County executive Aisha Braveboy, told residents of the Marylander condominiums—which for years has been besieged by squalid homeless encampment next door—that they would be evicted on Friday, March 6.

Martin also sought to dispel some “misinformation” about their predicament: The homeless encampment, which has drawn drug deals to the area and whose inhabitants allegedly broke the building’s heat, had nothing to do with it, he said.

“There are some that are advancing a narrative that unhoused or homeless individuals are creating crime,” Martin told the condominium’s embattled residents. “We’re not going to point our fingers all the way [at] individuals who are already marginalized … to say that they are responsible for something that they are not responsible for.”

Over the past 60 days, Martin explained, police arrested 33 people around the Marylander, only 2 of whom were homeless. The other 31 were “residents or visitors” who were “not related to the … homeless situation.”

“The statistics do not lie,” he said.

But when Martin visited the Marylander two hours later, he was forced to wait outside as police searched for a homeless man in one of the buildings. And when the officers finally found him, he wasn’t arrested. Instead, this reporter watched as police released him, uncuffed, in full view of a sign that said trespassers would be “prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

The statistics, it seemed, had lied after all. As one resident explained to Martin, the homeless don’t show up in the arrest data because the police don’t arrest the homeless.

“He will come back,” the resident said of the trespasser. “They aren’t doing anything.”

Martin—a former police chief who was suspended in 2022 for his alleged mishandling of excessive force complaints—did not respond to a request for comment.

The incident provides a snapshot of how Prince George’s County, an overwhelmingly Democratic stronghold in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., has sought to deflect blame for a crisis it helped create.

The county made no attempt to clear the encampment until its residents allegedly vandalized the condo’s boiler room, leaving 100 units without heat and under evacuation orders from a judge. Condo-owners say police refuse to arrest vagrants who defecate in their halls, while property managers blame local officials for ignoring repeated requests for help.

That inaction could now cost the county up to $100 million: On Thursday, the condominium sued county officials for presiding over what it described as a “state-created danger” sustained by “deliberate indifference,” arguing that the encampment was a direct result of government policy that “caused foreseeable vandalism, crime, and damage to Condominium Property.”

The complaint, filed in federal court, argues that the county “destroyed a residential community” and deprived condo-owners of their constitutional rights. It relies heavily on the county’s policy—outlined in a previously unreported document—of delivering food to homeless encampments.

“Regular visits to known encampments to drop off food, warm blankets and other necessities create opportunities to build trust and ensure the relative health and safety of this population,” the county’s 2021-2025 housing plan states.

Those deliveries continued even as police chastised the condo’s legal residents for feeding the camp, arguing that such behavior would only “incentivize the unhoused population to return.”

“The County’s deliveries sustained the encampment … adjacent to the Condominium Property, and the County was the moving force behind all the risks and harms suffered by the Condominium,” the lawsuit says. “The County was aware of the dangers and harms faced by the Condominium … and it played a central role in creating them.”

The lawsuit also describes how police refused to arrest trespassers like the one Martin encountered during his visit. And it notes that the condo has no money for repairs after an onslaught of citations spooked private lenders, leaving the Marylander with just $600,000 to address as much as $17 million in property damage.

The Marylander is also prohibited from applying for public aid without county approval. Officials said in February that they would not sponsor a federal loan application until the code violations were cleared up, and the county refused to back a loan from a private bank that said it would only lend on the condition of a county guarantee.

The lack of credit has the condominium in a bind. Officials say the complex would have fewer break-ins if it improved security. But securing the complex costs money that the condo, already $3 million in utility debt, doesn’t have, thanks in part to alleged embezzlement by the previous property managers.

Meanwhile, vagrants have become adept at bypassing what little security exists. As Martin toured the Marylander, one resident pointed out a door that had been secured with three separate locks. A determined trespasser had gained access by smashing a nearby window.