Residents concerned about people living out of trailers on neighborhood street

CHARLOTTE — Complaints from residents in a Belmont neighborhood are piling up about uninvited guests’ trailers and vehicles that have been parked on Harrill Street in front of their homes since last week.

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The residents have asked the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department for help.

The owner of a trailer told Channel 9′s Erika Jackson that he can’t afford to live anywhere else.

Residents told Jackson that they are concerned about their safety, which is why they asked Channel 9 for help.

“We love to take walks in the neighborhood,” said resident Taylor Jones. “We generally feel very safe. We don’t now.”

Jones blames the uninvited neighbors who rolled up behind his home and unpacked their stuff.

People have been living in trailers along Harrill Street in Belmont.

“They don’t live here,” Jones said. “They don’t pay taxes.”

Resident Joe O’Connell said families are scared.

“(There are) adults partying, throwing trash, yelling at every passerby, saying terrible things, making everyone just feel threatened,” O’Connell said.

A neighbor caught one of the altercations on camera.

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Jackson spoke with one of the men in the video.

He said the video only tells half the story and blames his aggression on bullying neighbors.

The man told Jackson that he was once welcome in the neighborhood but was displaced from his Belmont home in the mid-2000s.

He believes the gentrification in Belmont is the reason why he’s living on the street.

O’Connell said that he called 311, code enforcement and CMPD.

“I’d like to know that there’s a place that they can go, that they can get the help that they need,” O’Connell said.

O’Connell said that officers have gone to the location but he hasn’t seen them take any action.

Jones said he hopes someone can bring change that works for everyone.

“I’d love to see community leaders come together with a solution that doesn’t make it someone else’s problem,” Jones said. “But helps provide them a place to go where there can be contributing members of society.”