Maryland officials have found new placements for all foster children who previously resided in hotels, officials said Monday, meeting a deadline set after a teen’s death by suicide in Baltimore spurred the state to end the decades-long practice of housing kids in such unlicensed facilities.
“There are no youth in hotels, shelters, or offices,” Maryland Department of Human Services spokeswoman Lillian Price told The Washington Post. “When the Moore-Miller Administration came to office, over 40 youth were staying in hotels. The administration committed to ending hotel stays as a top priority.”
The Monday deadline was set in October by Human Services Secretary Rafael López, weeks after 16-year-old Kanaiyah Ward died while staying in a Baltimore hotel.
According to a police report, the one-on-one chaperone assigned to supervise Ward went to wake her for school at about 5:45 a.m. on Sept. 22, but the adult could not rouse the teenager. The chaperone, whose employer was redacted in the report, was told by other staff that Ward was a “heavy sleeper.”
The chaperone left for several hours before returning to the hotel room at about 10:30 a.m. By then, Ward had stopped breathing, and the chaperone called 911. According to an autopsy report, Ward died by suicide and was found with an empty bottle of diphenhydramine, the active ingredient in Benadryl, nearby.
In a memo, Lopez directed social service departments across the state to stop facilitating hotel stays. The agency said it had been working to reduce the number of children placed in unlicensed facilities since López took office in 2023. Earlier this year, the department revamped its data collection procedures to better track placements and reduce the number of children living in hotels.
The children previously placed in hotels have been moved to licensed care settings, including with kinship caregivers, licensed foster care homes and congregate care facilities, Price said.
“The work is far from over,” Price added. “We will not rest until every child in our state is safe, residing in a permanent home and surrounded by loving family.”
Maryland has been under a consent decree because of maltreatment in its foster care system, including the practice of placing children in unlicensed facilities, since 1988. The state’s system has come under renewed scrutiny in recent months.
The week before Ward’s death, state auditors published a scathing report that identified shortcomings at the Social Services Administration, the state agency that oversees foster care, that may have put children in dangerous situations. The audit alleged that SSA failed to perform proper background checks of providers who come into contact with the children and did not review background checks for the vendors that provide one-on-one care in settings such as hotels.
Ward’s death and the audit renewed calls from lawmakers and advocates to end the practice of placing foster care children in hotels and other unlicensed facilities that lack beds, showers and other basic amenities, including a 24-hour Department of Human Services office building that has sometimes been used to temporarily house children.
“You all knew that you had problems, and yet those problems continued for quite a long time,” Del. Steven J. Arentz, a Republican who represents Kent, Queen Anne’s, and parts of Cecil and Caroline counties, said at a hearing before state lawmakers in October. “And we lost a life, and we don’t even know what happened to the other kids in hotels.”
Despite the increased attention, the system’s problems have continued. Within days of announcing the moratorium on placing children in unlicensed facilities, the Baltimore Banner reported that a child had spent a night in the agency’s office building.
Still, the agency said it has managed to successfully remove all of the children who previously resided in hotels and find new placements at licensed facilities. At least 280 Maryland foster care children lived in hotels for some stretch of time between fiscal years 2023 and 2024, according to the department.
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