BATON ROUGE - A veterans post is having repeat run-ins with the homeless and called 2 On Your Side for help.

Post 3784 helps veterans of foreign wars and has many fundraising events throughout the year. They do their best to keep the area secure and safe, but lately, Commander Tommy Petrie says it's been a difficult task.

"It's a big problem," Petrie said.

In the back of the property behind the fence, visitors can find discarded junk: bicycle tires, bricks, shopping carts, tubs, and buckets.

"Then on the other side you got an old bed back there," he said.

Behind Post 3784 is a large piece of land owned by several family members. Petrie says the homeless are using the veteran's post to trespass. He spoke to one of them hauling a shopping cart through the parking lot to the woods.

"I asked him what he was doing and he said he was going back to that building back there, which he had permission to go back there," Petrie said.

Post 3784 is located off of South Choctaw Drive and North Flannery Road. The vegetation is overgrown making the building inaccessible by car. Petrie has been back there to take photos and found the area littered with propane tanks, bicycles, shopping carts, wooden planks and trash.

The foot traffic started about a year ago, but most recently Petrie has found people in the back of the veterans building using the electricity and running water. He's taken the knob off the faucet to prevent it from happening again. It's been so invasive that some volunteers donated the supplies and labor to put up a 10-foot chain link fence.

Last week, Petrie captured surveillance video of a car in the parking lot late at night. The next morning he walked to the back of the fence and found that the tension wire had been cut, allowing people to once again access the wooded area.

"The guy had cut the tension wire on the bottom so they could pull it up and either put stuff back there or get stuff out of there," he said.

Other businesses are making complaints similar to Petrie's. He has called the police several times and filed a police report in early August. He hadn't heard anything from the police until he contacted 2 On Your Side. A detective tells Petrie they plan to take a closer look at the case.

The large piece of property is owned by the O'Neals. Several of them have homes along South Flannery Road and briefly spoke with Brittany Weiss about the problem. They are aware of the trespassing and attempted to run them off recently. The O'Neals have also initiated protective measures including putting up fencing.

While Petrie is doing what he can to secure the veterans organization, he's angry that people are abusing its benefits.