The Victory House, located at 1702-1708 Light St, passed a health inspection as reported at Tuesday night’s South Baltimore Neighborhood Association (SBNA) meeting. The property, originally built as a boarding house for men returning from World War II, has become a source frustration for the South Baltimore neighborhood. The health inspection result came as a shock to members of SBNA, Councilman Cole and Officer Butterbean, who has been in the property many times.
No longer home to soldiers returning from war, the Victory House, which Officer Butterbean referred to as a “flop-house,” is known as a “popular hangout for drug users, dealers and prostitutes.” The property holds more than 30 small rent-by-week rooms and common bathrooms and kitchens.
A story was told by police officers that there is so much late-night drug use in the bathrooms of the property that many of the tenants who were not doing drugs would bring buckets to their tiny bedrooms so they could go to the bathroom without being around drug activity. The property is the registered home of three Maryland Sex Offenders and it sits across the street from Thomas Johnson Elementary/Middle School. There are no living restrictions for sex offenders in this state.
From the Maryland Department of Public Safety Website:
No, Maryland does not have any residency restrictions. Information put out by other states has shown that residency restrictions do not help to prevent sexual offenses from occurring because the victims and the offenders, in most situations, know each other. Having ready access to victims, in private and secretive environments, is how sex offenders thrive.
Baltimore Police recommend calling 911 every time you see something illegal going on at the property and 311 if there is an obvious health code violation.
Several attempts to buy the property have fallen through over the years.
