For people who are homeless, just getting a meal every day can be fighting tooth and nail, and they could have to relocate everything they own on a whim if authorities decide that they cannot set up camp in a given location.
“You got your good days and your bad days out there,” James, a local man who is homeless and asked to only use his first name, said. “None of them are really good, but some of them are just better than others.”
And there are more homeless people in Charles County than many probably realize.
The Jan. 25, 2023, Point in Time Count showed the homeless population across Southern Maryland is around 322 individuals, with Charles County having at least 95 unsheltered people, 110 in emergency shelters and 15 in transitional housing.
Of the 322 people in Southern Maryland identified as homeless during the annual one-day count last year, 20% where considered chronically homeless, just over half were men and about two-thirds were Black.
Southern Maryland News sat down with a group of people who are currently homeless to help understand the root of their issues and the efforts being made to help them. Some identified themselves only by their first names while some asked to remain anonymous.
They told stories of the hard lives they are leading.
“I’ve been homeless since 2013,” Vincent said. “I have saw a lot of people freeze to death.”
Vincent described the cold nights he had experienced, saying that there were times he thought he was going to freeze to death.
“I got shorts and a short T-shirt,” Vincent said. “I don’t have a jacket, none of that stuff.”
Jamie described how there are items that people do not consider as immediately helpful for a person who is homeless but are things they need.
People donate gloves and hats seasonally, but they sometimes only get items like those, according to Jamie. She recalled an experience where she was asked if she needed anything and replied, “A pillow.”
The person who asked her seemed surprised at that answer, but she said that something that people often take for granted could make a huge difference in their comfort.
One man said he developed sciatica from sleeping on the cold ground has left him disabled.
Why don’t they just get a job?
A common theme among the group was that their circumstances make employment incredibly difficult to come by, saying that they will often not be considered for jobs.
“Honest people, like Mr. James, I have saw him put applications in to get a job, and nobody will hire him,” Vincent said. “You got to give the homeless people a chance.”
Left behind
Charles County continues to grow explosively, with the county gaining 23,551 new residents between 2010 and 2022, according to the United States census.
Rent prices continue to increase with the county being advertised as a suburb of Washington, D.C., pricing out those living on limited means while the state faces a shortage of nearly 100,000 housing units, according to the governor’s 2024 state plan.
Maryland has the 10th highest two-bedroom housing wage in the nation — that’s the amount needed to afford rent and utilities without paying more than 30% of income on housing — according to the 2023 Out of Reach study.
Assuming a 40-hour work week, that wage would be $31.08 an hour. The state’s minimum wage is less than half that at $15 per hour.
During the winter when it was freezing, some people without homes were able to find government-sponsored housing at a local motel.
Jamie, who is married to James, talked about her experience at the motel, saying, “But dang, can you change the sheets, can I get a washcloth? The roaches don’t even die in the microwave. I’m not asking for Paris Hilton.”
She claimed that Department of Social Service food was being withheld from them by workers at the motel and that she and James went hungry for three days. James said that he believed he saw them feeding some of the food to birds.
“I would like to not be treated like an animal,” Jamie said.
Facing routine challenges has weighed heavily on their mental state, with James saying that he has considered suicide before, and may have followed through with it if not for Jamie’s emotional support.
Vincent, who had come to the Salvation Army to talk with a reporter, agreed with James, saying that he also had suicidal thoughts, but the only reason that he did not was because he has two children.
“I have been to a mental ward,” Vincent said. “I get to a point where I just don’t care anymore.”
Struggling for safety
The people living in a makeshift tent city in a wooded area in Waldorf cannot guarantee their safety at any time of the day.
James said there was a time when he and Jamie were getting ready to sleep and a woman attempted to set their tent on fire around 2 a.m.
Thankfully, their tent did not go up in flames, James said. It was filled with so much flammable material that he was unsure if he would’ve been able to escape unharmed.
Jamie said that wildlife has been a major concern for the couple. She said that one night she was woken up by James after hearing rustling outside their tent. James told her to run.
Jamie was confused as to why they had to run but could tell from James that it was serious. She kept asking why they were running, but James did not tell her until they were away from imminent danger.
He said that they were running from a large coyote, which had been a problem in their tent community for some time. Jamie said that she had seen the coyote hunting and killing geese in the middle of their settlement before and hid until the coyote had left with its prey.
According to the group, their camps are never guaranteed day-to-day and they may need to leave at a moment’s notice if the police show up and say they are trespassing.
If that happens, they need to attempt to gather their belongings as quickly as possible and leave. Some reported having to relocate their camps up to eight times over the last decade.
For some, the camps are their lives. All of their belongings are in their tents, and moving everything they own with no assistance is a daunting task.
Mike Turner, a representative of the Waldorf Salvation Army, said that several locations in Charles County are essentially “wasted land” and could be used to benefit people who are homeless and give them safer, better-lit locations.
Turner pointed to an eight-acre commuter bus park and ride along Smallwood Parkway that he has never seen near capacity. The lot is separated into two segments, with one being closer to the actual bus stop and the bulk of the lot behind the stops, being almost entirely unoccupied.
“The problem is only going to increase,” Turner said. “Inflation is going up, so this problem is going to be magnified and it’s not going to go down.”
He hopes for the establishment of a designated site where homeless people could set up camp and have services like trash pick-up so they do not have to live among filth and rodents that often come with “tent cities.”
“I’m sure this county owns some land unoccupied. They could create a place where they can put in electric. They can create a place where they can take a shower,” Turner said. “I don’t want to ask these folks when’s the last time they had a shower. Can you imagine? I can’t imagine going a day.”
The Salvation Army can provide various canned goods to people who are homeless through their pantry, but the homeless usually do not have the means to cook or prepare a meal, besides a campfire, which is something Turner hopes would change with a dedicated site.
Each of the homeless people interviewed for this story reported that they have been on housing waitlists for as long as six years but have not had any luck finding permanent shelter.
Lifestyles Inc., a local foundation dedicated to feeding and sheltering people who are homeless, can provide emergency shelter for a 90-day period, where they aim to transition someone to permanent housing in that timeframe. Extensions are offered on a case-by-case basis.
Corae Young, the chief operating officer of Lifestyles, said in a phone call with Southern Maryland News that the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide issues with staffing have exacerbated struggles at Lifestyles.
Shelters that could hold a maximum capacity of 50 people are now holding roughly 25 due to health issues of densely packing individuals together, Young said.
She said that shelters are still asking people to test for COVID-19, and they will likely stay with the current capacity for the foreseeable future.
Many people live paycheck to paycheck and are just a single incident away from being homeless.
“There’s an episode of the Golden Girls, and Rose has lost her job,” said Jamie, the woman who is homeless in the tent city in the woods. “And she says every day I pass a lady and she’s pushing a basket, and everything she owns is in that basket. She said, ‘But today, I took a look at her, and that lady is me.’ We are your reflection if you don’t get that check. We’re still human. We don’t walk on fours, we walk on twos. We just didn’t get our check last week. So think about it because you might not get yours next week, and I’ll be popping you a tent.”
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