The smell of filth filled the small apartment. The couches were overturned, along with a washing machine, and the floors were streaked with grime. A bra lay on the floor in front of Shirley Gilbert's refrigerator.
The underwear wasn't hers. Neither, she says, was the mess that drug dealers and junkies left for her to clean up in her one-bedroom apartment in the Latrobe public housing community in East Baltimore.
"It's not safe here," Gilbert said. "They come in and do what they want to do. They bust the window. My life has been threatened."
Gilbert, 48, said she has struggled to get help from the Housing Authority of Baltimore City. She has repeatedly complained about a broken lock on the rear door, a broken window and young men loitering on her steps - all of which left her scared and forced her to spend nights at her daughter's home since mid-November.
Soon after, she said, drug dealers and addicts moved in and turned her home on Abbott Court into a dirty narcotics den.
On Friday, the housing authority's deputy executive director, Jemine Bryon, said in a statement that the system for dealing with such "difficult and complicated" situations has "generally proven to be effective." Housing officials disputed many of Gilbert's claims, including her complaints that they didn't fix a broken door lock and broken windows.
Gilbert is waiting to hear back from housing officials about her request to move, but is bracing for the possibility that her request will be denied and she will be responsible for cleaning the detritus from her apartment.
Housing officials say they relocate tenants only in emergencies or in special circumstances, and did not have enough documentation to support Gilbert's request to move. Also, they fix problems involving plumbing, heating and water systems, but the leaseholder is responsible for keeping an apartment clean.
Gilbert's move to Latrobe a year ago was a step up for her. She had been living in a boarding house in Northeast Baltimore and participating in an alcohol rehabilitation program. Her monthly rent at Latrobe is $177, and she gets disability checks. She has a daughter who lives in public housing in Cherry Hill. Gilbert has been spending nights at her daughter's apartment or with her niece, Laverne Hicks.
Hicks, a federal worker, has helped guide her aunt through the housing bureaucracy. She said that, on two separate occasions, officials with the housing agency's lease enforcement unit told Gilbert to not return to her unit if she felt unsafe.
