While transgender prostitutes risk harm to themselves, residents of the areas where they ply their trade say they also harm them. For a decade, homeowners in lower Charles Village have complained about hookers loudly flagging down johns, trespassing, and generally disrupting life on the streets and alleys just north of North Avenue. It described a parade of women strutting up St. Paul Street at 4 A. One neighborhood resident who bought his house over a decade ago says the prostitution problem-mainly involving transgender women-ramped up as Mount Vernon pushed the activity north from that neighborhood.
The resident, who asked his name not be used for fear of retaliation from the drug dealers he says accompany the prostitutes, calls police regularly and monitors the street activity. Neighborhood walks late at night and, for a while, a blue light, deterred some of the activity, he says, but the prostitutes and pimps fought back. The resident says he heard talk about enforcement to push the activity west to Howard Street, which is a commercial area.
But word came back that the prostitutes feel safer in the residential neighborhood because residents will call police for screaming or gunshots. The resident says he is aware of the problems the transgender prostitutes face, and he is sympathetic.
But he rejects the notion that police or residents are picking on transgender prostitutes because they are transgender. Prostitution is illegal, and they bring other crime in. The activity is clearly organized, the resident says, with carpools, teen lookouts, and a remote person who apparently monitors police radio bands and warns of approaching cops. Beyond the dangers created by drug trafficking, residents say they are disgusted to discover used condoms or actual prostitutes draped over their cars or human excrement on their driveways.
The activity, centered in the lower blocks of Calvert, St. Paul, and Charles streets, holds back a neighborhood that seems primed to gentrify. One resident e-mailed later to admonish a reporter to mention the good things going on, including the rehabbing of vacant buildings and creation of two community gardens.
