A Couple of Actions That Made Me A Good Resident at Hanover Square Apartments

There is a history of homeless people sneaking into and sleeping in common areas of the Hanover Square apartment building at 1 W. Conway St. in Baltimore. When I was a resident there, I came home one evening and before I entered the building I saw that down the hall in the elevator lobby there were two homeless men trying to sleep there. One was on a small wooden bench and the other on the floor. A female resident was walking past and getting on the elevator. I called 911 on the homeless guys.

A cop came, I unlocked the front door, we walked in and I walked against the wall so that the homeless could not see me. I was concerned about them seeing me on the street on a later day and causing me trouble, so I left the police officer's side and walked upstairs to the third floor, where there is a small outside patio over looking the area out in front of the building. The cop checked them for wants and warrants, then let them leave. The officer and homeless guys were calm and polite with each other, and the outcome was fair.

It is easy for anyone to slip in behind residents who unlock the front door and come in, due to many residents being very old and frail. I was not the first to see the homeless in our lobby, others had passed by and not called police, and if I had not called 911 there probably would have been other residents who saw but said nothing. That's the way it is there.

On another day, there was a young homeless man overdosed and dead on steps - to a public area that is sort of a little cement and brick city park attached to the Hanover Square property - on one evening as I walked up to the Hanover Square apartment building I lived in at 1 W. Conway St. in Baltimore. It is the main entrance and exit for pedestrians from Hanover Square and the neighborhood there. I called 911, then administered a shot of naloxone narcotic reversal agent that I carried just for such an event. It had no effect. I then attempted to get the OD'd guy into a position where I could begin chest compressions, but he was too heavy for my old & disabled body to move. 

EMS was there within a few minutes of the 911 call, and they took over. They pointed out to me that the OD'd man's skin was already turning blue, which is a bad sign. They tried hard to revive the OD's guy for ten to fifteen minutes, but could not.  

I had seen several residents pass by before and during the incident before EMS got there, but no one else helped.