A condo resident is plagued by a neighbor’s drug addict visitors
Pathways Homes provides housing for chronically homeless and mentally ill individuals. But when those tenants cause problems, it’s difficult to get them evicted.
That’s what Brianna Hernandez found when the Pathways tenant living across the hall from her home at the Hollybrooke Condominium in Seven Corners began making her life miserable.
The tenant, who goes by John, lets homeless people squat in his apartment at Greenwood Drive. When she leaves her home at 6 a.m. to go to work, she’s seen up to 10 people at a time sleeping and passed out in the hallway and stairwell.
His visitors bang on his door at all hours of the day and night. “It’s obvious they’re doing drugs there,” she says. She’s heard people in the hallway yelling, “open the door, bro,” then leave five minutes later, after apparently buying drugs.
She has seen people smoking meth in the corridor, groups of people hanging out in front of the building smoking weed, and drug deals in the laundry room. One man she saw in the hallway was “just sitting there smoking meth in front of me.”
There’s also been a lot of loud arguing, fighting, and throwing things inside the problem unit.
The visitors get into the building because the tenant gave them the code to open the front door. Hernandez suspects some of them used to camp out nearby on Patrick Henry Drive before Hollybrooke designated that area a no-trespassing zone.
She says Pathways doesn’t check up on its tenants enough. A representative from Pathways has been to her building several times in recent months, but has taken no action to address her complaints.
Shawn Flaherty, a spokesperson for Pathway Homes, declined to talk about specific cases.
The nonprofit owns, leases, and manages more than 500 properties in Northern Virginia, including at least 50 in Mason District. Pathways serves about 2,000 people each year.
According to Flaherty, “We work closely with the communities that welcome our clients to uphold our commitment to being a great neighbor while meeting our mission.”
The narcotics officer with the police department who is investigating the drug abuse at Hollybrooke also declined to comment.
Hernandez is pursuing legal action to get the problem tenant evicted. He had already been served an unlawful detainer and had been given 21 days to fix the problems and 30 days to move out. Those deadlines passed and he is still here.
At a court date on May 9, Pathways’ attorney said Fairfax County is tenant-friendly and that a landlord needs proof of squatting before a tenant can be evicted.
The judge set a court date of May 23. Hernandez doesn’t have an attorney, but she has plenty of evidence and is building a timeline, collecting police reports, and gathering proof.
Hernandez can’t move out because she’s the caretaker for her 84-year-old grandmother, who bought the condo at Hollybrooke in the 1980s.
“My grandmother didn’t come here from Bolivia and work for years as a cleaner to save up to buy a condo – now paid off – to end up with drug dealers in the building,” she says.
“It’s just so insane,” Hernandez says. “I get it; Seven Corners is not a good area, but it’s never been this bad.” At one point, children living on her floor saw a man with his pants halfway down. “It’s just so sad they have to see this.”
At one point, Hernandez called the police after one of the tenant’s visitors rang her doorbell at 2 a.m. “The guy was on fentanyl. He was arrested. The cops investigated, and he was released and came back.” The police told her the people hanging out at the building are not harmful, just addicts.
Related story: Residents concerned about sidewalk squatters
