Baltimore's people of the woods: Inside the hidden homeless camps made of milk crates, wooden doors

Daily Mail On Line ^ | 21, February 2014 | Daily Mail Reporter

[Kartographer]

A sheet of plastic laid over a clothesline. A mini-fortress of milk crates stacked under a tree. A thin mattress on a flimsy crate lying in a dark tunnel. On the edge of Baltimore's woodlands, dozens of the city's transients live in makeshift homes which they consider safer than homeless shelters.

Photographer Ben Marcin has captured some of the shanties in his thought-provoking photo essay, 'The Camps', documenting the struggle, loneliness and ingenuity of Maryland's people of the woods.

[riverrunner]

They trash any place they live.

[Kartographer]

It’s NOT a uncommon occurance on the street and more than once the victim has been killed our savagely beaten if they put up a fight.

Corrected

[Vinylly]

Welcome to Seattle where they are trying to call Obamaville a Nickelville. I thought Obama was going to solve this problem but in Seattle it has gotten a lot worse. The city is proposing three new locations for Obamaville but they are calling it Nickelville.

[AngelesCrestHighway]

[Salvavida]

They are there on their own volition. If they wanted a job, they could IMMEDIATELY take a job from a migrant worker in the farm belt: and the farmer pays for a place to live and transportation.

I just had dinner with a farmer, and he says Americans are too lazy.

[Red Badger]

Pensacola and Ft. Walton Beach (where I am) are both trying to find land for a ‘Homeless Camp’ where they can set up their tents, and have city provided port-a-potties and fresh water available................But solving the problem by getting more businesses to locate here and providing more jobs seems to be absent......................

[Kartographer]

That’s true, but their are plenty of people who have managed to live their whole lives in which stuff never happened and who hold anyone down on their luck as beneath contempt, even those who even in their circumstances still refuse to take the dole and continue to provide for themselves.

[Red Badger]

Having been homeless at one point in my life I cannot even think of being derogatory to anyone in such conditions.................

[dainbramaged]

I love the open concept for that living room - nice and airy, too.

[kenmcg]

Obama’s America! How’s that for “hope & change”?

[Kartographer]

Yes but you can’t cheat a citizen like you can a illegal and you can’t pay them next to nothing like you can. And you can’t just call ICE and have them picked up when their wages are do.

Yes not all do it, but it happens enough not to be that uncommon either.

[varyouga]

I’d rather live in the woods off whatever I can plant/kill than work my a** off for the average salary in the USA (~$28,000/yr).

IMO, anyone should be able to buy property and inhabit their own structure at their own risk.

Property tax, building codes, EPA, etc, etc are simply there to keep freedom unaffordable and the tax slaves on the plantation.

[Albion Wilde]

Bawlmer ping!

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

:: makeshift homes which they consider safer than homeless shelters ::

Now, why would they think that, I wonder?

Also, these folks have living quarters set up in public venue with out the Po-Po asking any questions....but, when someone gets stopped on the street for speeding, well then...let’s search the car to see what we find.

[Army Air Corps]

I thought that only loyal Party members were eligible for a hovel.

[Organic Panic]

Funemployment in Obamaville. Let tge good times roll. Now lets get a community organizer tgere ASAP to register them as democrats and blame it all on republicans.

[Fedupwithit]

...and if a Republican is taking the oath of office in January 2017, these pictures, and this heart-wrenching story will be on the front page of every US newspaper that day...and the Pubbies will whimper..

[Boogieman]

Don’t forget real estate taxes, aka “tribute to the lord of the manor”.

[Kartographer]

I have to. There was a Priest that befriend me then We talk LOTR and play chess. (yeah take that those of you who consider me a Catholic hater!). He would help me get my checks cashed. When I got my apartment he was getting reassigned and he was a Chaplin in the Navy he gave me a dog tag stamp with the following lines from LOTR:

”Not all those who wander are lost.”

Several years later my status was much changed and I though of him often over that time. So I tracked him down and it was hard as the Church wouldn’t give me any information on him. Seems he had left the Church and joined the Episcopalians. A kind hearted secretary give me a clue as to where he was. I remember how she whispered into the phone just enough information that would allow me to track him down. I sent him a letter and a kartographer drawn map of Middle Earth, which he proudly had framed and hung in his office.

[South Dakota]

trust me.
this $hit would not fly in Williston Nd