An uptick in reports of open-air drug use in and around a state-owned park in Neponset has prompted increased State Police patrols at the site, according to state Rep. Dan Hunt. The park, which includes McMorrow Playground, is located across the street from the Armory on Victory Road and adjacent to the Richard J. Murphy School and Leahy-Holloran Community Center.

“The neighbors have seen a couple of individuals over the last few weeks doing drugs in the playground itself,” said Hunt. “Throughout the city and Dorchester, we find needles more and more every day, especially over the last eight years as Mass & Cass has expanded…I’ve seen an increase of homeless and encampments in the neighborhood, in city and state parks and in the woods around the MBTA property. I’ve asked State Police to increase patrols of the area.”

One concerned citizen who operates a day care center near the park posted her frustrations on social media last week.

“There are needles everywhere,” she wrote. “I can’t take my daycare kids here to play anymore, and I don’t even feel comfortable walking by...This is so not okay.”

Hunt told the Reporter that he initiated a similar request for policing when people were found living in the woods adjacent to McMorrow Playground last spring. That was quickly handled, he said. “Over my lifetime, panhandling and homelessness has increased every year,” he added. “As a society, including city and state government, we can’t get a handle on it.”

Concerns about discarded needles and drug use at McMorrow Playground and other nearby sites— including the Stop & Shop property on Morrissey Boulevard— have fueled some of the opposition to a Pine Street Inn proposal to convert the Comfort Inn on Morrissey into supportive housing for formerly homeless adults.