It’s been nearly three years since Mayor Brandon Scott first announced the city’s intent to acquire hotels to serve as temporary housing for people experiencing homelessness, and officials still have yet to close a deal.
Leaders in Baltimore’s homelessness office have indicated in recent weeks that the city is nearing a deal to acquire one or more hotels to provide around 275 new beds for people experiencing homelessness, a step many had hoped would land sooner.
But the city’s slow progress comes as another winter — the third since Scott debuted the plan — is in full swing. Though temperatures have been mostly mild so far, they dipped below freezing this week while the city extended its emergency winter shelters. A mix of snow and rain hit the Baltimore area this weekend as a “significant storm system” reached Maryland.
Meanwhile, the costs surrounding the acquisitions have increased. In September, the city’s spending board approved a six-month, $119,000 extension to a consulting agreement with LeSar Development Consultants, a firm retained to help the homelessness office secure the deal, according to Board of Estimates agenda records, pushing LeSar’s total consulting costs to $221,000. The extension agreement expired Dec. 31.
Federal estimates suggest Baltimore’s population of people experiencing homelessness may have grown or stayed stagnant over the last year. The latest data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual estimate shows that homelessness in the U.S. increased in 2023 by 12% after a few years of decline during the pandemic. Baltimore City’s own 2023 point-in-time count, which uses surveys on a given night in January to estimate the number of unhoused people, found a 3% decline in homelessness from the year prior, a number it emphasized was not statistically significant.
The story continues at The Baltimore Banner: With another winter here, city has no deal to purchase hotels to house homeless
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