Our neighborhood has a homeless problem that spills out in all directions. From encampments in front of restaurants, car washes, bus stops, behind grocery stores, and hidden away next to cinderblock walls sandwiched between a line of tall plants, the proliferation of homeless people has continued to grow since the end of the COVID lockdown. Ironically, I’d recently read that Atlanta, Georgia, leads the country with about 1,200 properties being squatted in by people who would otherwise be homeless. Well, a house in our neighborhood that was empty for almost two years has been taken over.

We suspected such for the past weeks, but it wasn’t until this morning, as we were walking by and seeing a locksmith parked in front, that we learned that it was, in fact, true: squatters had taken over the house. Earlier that day, the police had been called, and upon their arrival, the people camped inside ran and were allowed to flee as there’s really nothing law enforcement could do about the issue since it’s simply overwhelming. The locksmith told us that the owner was inside assessing the situation, and so I went and said hello. It turns out she inherited the place when her sister passed away, and she’s been too distraught to deal with selling the home, but now that it’s been defiled, it seems she’s changed her mind. After talking a bit, she invited us in to see the carnage for ourselves. A ton of drug paraphernalia was in the master bedroom; however, the kitchen and bathrooms were being cared for with cleaning supplies on hand, and fresh food was stored in the clean fridge. Interior doors appeared to have been punched in, there was some minor writing on the walls, and all of the belongings left behind hinted that at least four people had fled.

Though the owner paid to have the locks changed, she left the broken sliding door in the back to stay that way, with the hope that the transients would return to fetch their worldly possessions. They returned a few days later, but instead of grabbing their stuff, they moved right back in. I called to notify her, but she sounded defeated, and at the time I’m writing this, a couple of weeks later, they are still living rent-free under a roof, keeping them dry and hidden away while cooking up whatever it was in the burned piece of foil on the carpet.

Update: a month after posting this, an Uber driver I met in a coffee shop described this foil setup and shared what he learned from a passenger. This is called “Chasing the Blue,” and it involves placing a blue tablet of fentanyl on the foil, firing it from below, and sucking in the smoking fumes with a straw to get high. Now I know.