Amid calls for the adoption of more ambitious harm reduction initiatives to combat Baltimore’s unprecedented overdose crisis, Councilman Ryan Dorsey says it’s important not to mince words: overdose prevention centers are needed now.

Dorsey’s endorsement of OPCs, which provide people a safe, judgment-free space to use drugs under the supervision of medical professionals, came at the tail end of a two-hour-long public hearing on the city’s overdose crisis. Though his support is not new, his calls at the July 9 hearing provided an unusually explicit and public endorsement of the programs — a stark contrast to Mayor Brandon Scott and his administration.

“One thing I can say that I’ve come to understand as absolutely critical to our path forward is overdose prevention centers,” Dorsey said. “I don’t think we can get this going quickly enough.”

Dorsey, who spoke about his experience in abstinence-based recovery, said he has gained a “very personalized” perspective on drug use and treatment as city officials mull how they will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to address a crisis that has killed thousands of residents, a disproportionate number of which are older Black men, over the past decade.

“It’s absolutely tragic when [drug users] die unnecessarily,” Dorsey said. “That’s the difference overdose prevention makes: that people do not die unnecessarily.”

Dorsey was passionate in his comments, but a lone council member does not have the power required to implement OPCs at the city level, despite harm reductionists in Baltimore calling for them for years.

Any such program would require an inter-agency, coordinated effort approved by the mayor, who has only endorsed state-level legislation that would legalize as many as six OPCs. Despite repeated questioning by media, he’s fallen short of endorsing city-sanctioned programs — something Dorsey previously said he fully supports.

OPCs, also known as safe consumption sites, are scarce in the U.S., only operating in New York City and Providence, Rhode Island, with the New York City sites operating without any explicit approval by state law. 

However, they have been crucial programs in other areas of the world for years, where studies have shown they reduce HIV and hepatitis transmission, prevent overdose deaths, and reduce public use of drugs.

They’re also seen as the golden standard for moving away from a criminalized approach to drug use, which could have major implications in a city where almost all people arrested for drug crimes are Black.

Bills to create OPCs have been introduced in the Maryland General Assembly for the better part of a decade, but they’ve repeatedly died in committee. 

Though Mayor Scott has the authority to unilaterally impose measures such as OPCs, he has repeatedly declined to comment on the matter despite naming them a “legislative priority” this year.

After the city council’s first public hearing — which came after similar hearings over the last year were cancelled in response to pressure from the mayor’s office because of ongoing opioid litigation — a member of his administration seemed to indicate he’s more open to the process after another year of setbacks in the General Assembly.

“Mayor Scott is unequivocal in his support of overdose prevention centers as a tool in the toolbelt to keep people alive,” said J.D. Merrill, the mayor’s deputy chief of staff, after the public hearing.

“We are looking for all possible avenues for how to do it in Baltimore. But I want to be really clear: We have to do this the right way. We can’t go the way of Philadelphia. We have to do this right, because if we don’t it’s going to damage the harm reduction movement.”

The allusion to efforts to open OPCs in Philadelphia has been a sour subject for harm reductionists.

In President Donald Trump’s first term in office, the Department of Justice blocked a nonprofit called Safehouse from opening a center in Philadelphia, much to the chagrin of advocates and public health experts. The organization, which offers other harm reduction services, has been in a lengthy legal battle with the federal government ever since.

Candy Kerr, spokesperson for the Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition, said the city can’t afford to wait. During the hearing, she invoked William Miller Sr., a ubiquitous figurename in the harm reduction community who died in 2020.

“If [an OPC] had been opened in the City of Baltimore, we might not have lost him a few years ago. So I come here to stand on that.”

It is clear, however, that the city is paving the way for the sites in Baltimore sometime in the future.

Last week, officials unveiled a sweeping strategic plan to serve as a roadmap for the city’s overdose prevention and substance use treatment initiatives, aiming to cut fatal overdoses 40% by 2040.

Though the two-year, 20-page draft plan makes no mention of OPCs, it explicitly states that one of the city’s priorities is to “increase access to a full array of low barrier harm reduction services (including naloxone distribution, drug checking, syringe service programs, and other evidence-based strategies,” the latter of which indicates OPCs would fall under that criteria.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Sara Whaley, executive director of the city’s overdose response, reiterated the plan could be a way to meet Dorsey’s goal.

“In the strategic plan, you’ll find references to things like ‘low-barrier access’ to services that feasibly could be something like an overdose prevention center,” Whaley said. 

It’s unclear whether there is enough support among council members to steer the city toward city-sanctioned sites. Councilwoman Phylicia Porter, chair of the Public Health and Environment Committee, said she wants to explore the sites but also wants to ensure there is proper “inter-agency coordination” in place to do so.

Councilman Mark Conway, the committee’s vice chair who publicly feuded with the mayor after public hearings he scheduled last July and this February were cancelled, was not present at the meeting.

A lack of full-throated support among council members, on the other hand, was not reflective of the crowd. At the hearing, about half a dozen harm reduction organizers said OPCs were an absolute priority to advance their work, also proclaiming their support for the decriminalization of drug paraphernalia — another potential city-level initiative that the mayor has only supported in the General Assembly.

The Public Health and Environment Committee will hold three more hearings on the overdose crisis and related matters at 10 a.m. in the City Council’s chambers this month:

• July 16: Hearing on legislative oversight of the opioid restitution funds.
• July 23: Hearing on legislative oversight of psychiatric rehabilitation programs.
• July 30: Hearing on oversight of recovery homes and substance use clinics.

In addition, Scott on Wednesday announced four “community listening sessions” to discuss restitution funds at 5:30 p.m. at the following locations and dates:

• July 9: Cherry Hill Elementary and Middle School, 801 Bridgeway Road.
• July 17: Gethsemane Baptist Church, 2520 Francis Street.
• July 23: Pimlico Elementary and Middle School, 4849 Pimlico Road.
• July 31: Henderson Hopkins Elementary and Middle School, 2100 Ashland Avenue.

The post As mayor’s administration tiptoes around overdose prevention centers, Councilman Dorsey says they’re needed now appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Baltimore officials have unveiled a sweeping plan to combat the city’s unprecedented overdose crisis — one largely predicated on acknowledging shortfalls in the city’s harm reduction infrastructure and the need to double down on compassionate care for drug users.

The two-year, 20-page draft plan, which aims to cut fatal overdoses 40% by 2040, was unveiled on July 2 by the new Mayor’s Office of Overdose Response. Mayor Brandon Scott created the agency through an executive order last year as part of a new chapter in the city’s fight against the crisis, during which officials have struggled to balance compassionate drug policy and punitive drug enforcement.

“The harm reduction approach, which is sort of a philosophy, is not consistently adopted in Baltimore City,” said Sadiya Muqueeth, chief health policy officer at the Baltimore City Health Department. “Baltimore City’s insufficient access to harm reduction services and lack of safe spaces increases overdose risk.”

The strategic plan, which was released in tandem with a needs assessment dashboard comprising local overdose data and areas in which the city can improve, focuses on five pillars: social determinants of health, prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery.

Its recommendations provide a holistic view of the crisis, embodying a ground-up approach. For instance, many of its prevention initiatives focus on general quality of life, such as increasing access to transportation, education, food assistance, employment, and housing.

It also calls for services directly pertaining to drug use and harm reduction. The plan recommends bolstering initiatives targeted at those disproportionately affected by the crisis, namely older Black men. Those programs include low-barrier, mobile harm reduction and crisis services in addition to brick-and-mortar locations.

Other recommendations in the plan include increased data transparency, educational campaigns, expanded 988 services, 24/7 stabilization centers, expanded access to treatment, and better oversight of treatment programs.

“Although there is no simple solution to the overdose crisis and we will not overcome it overnight, this strategic plan proposes an innovative approach to meet the present and immediate needs across our community—while laying the groundwork for the long-term changes to help end this crisis,” Scott said in a statement.

Though the strategic plan lists myriad other goals, it also contains some ambiguity, leaving the door open for specific programs that aren’t currently offered by the city. The plan, for example, makes no mention of overdose prevention centers, or OPCs, which allow individuals to use drugs under the supervision of medical professionals. 

The facilities are considered the gold standard in harm reduction, and Scott named them as one of his 21 “legislative priorities” this year. While Scott has supported efforts in the General Assembly to legalize OPCs for years, he has refused to answer questions about city-sanctioned sites like ones New York City has implemented.

The report, however, explicitly states that one of the city’s priorities is to “increase access to a full array of low barrier harm reduction services (including naloxone distribution, drug checking, syringe service programs, and other evidence-based strategies,” the latter of which indicates OPCs would fall under that criteria.

The unveiling of the strategic plan and needs assessment comes less than a month after a Baltimore Beat investigation detailing how city officials have found themselves unable — or unwilling — to let go of punitive drug enforcement and the millions of dollars it takes to bankroll the cops who carry it out.

Baltimore Police Department data obtained by the Beat showed that nearly all individuals charged and arrested on drug crimes in Baltimore are Black — even though studies show that drug use rates among the Black population are similar to those of other races. 

Though investing in diversion programs to prevent incarceration is a key recommendation in the report, officials said that law enforcement would continue to play a role in combating the overdose crisis. Those efforts would mostly focus on removing drugs from the streets, said Sara Whaley, executive director of the city’s overdose response.

Yet Whaley also emphasized that any police enforcement must be met with equally strong harm reduction initiatives, recognizing that drug enforcement can increase fatal overdose rates by disrupting the drug supply and pushing drug users toward riskier sources.

“When this happens, there must be a public health response so that people receive connection to care when the drug supply is interrupted through law enforcement action,” she said. 

Baltimore residents will now have the opportunity to give their input on the strategic plan at four public hearings, all of which are scheduled for this month at 5:30 p.m:

• July 9: Cherry Hill Elementary and Middle School, 801 Bridgeway Road
• July 17: Gethsemane Baptist Church, 2520 Francis Street
• July 23: Pimlico Elementary and Middle School, 4849 Pimlico Road
• July 31: Henderson Hopkins Elementary and Middle School, 2100 Ashland Avenue

Though the plan is intended to leverage multiple funding streams, including grants and restitution funds, it’s unclear how much money the city itself would put toward it. The city’s fiscal priorities may not be conducive to maximizing its harm reduction infrastructure.

Scott’s budget, which he signed on June 23, includes a $9.8 million increase to mental health and substance use disorder services, an 87% increase over the year prior. However, it also served as a stark reminder of the city’s battle between “public safety” and public health.

The fiscal plan also includes a $7 million cut to the health department, marking a 3.5% decrease from the year prior. At $201 million, its budget is less than one-third of the police department’s — and nearly half of that comes from federal funding that could be lost because of President Donald Trump’s barrage of cost-cutting measures.

At the same time, the police department will receive a more than $20 million increase, bringing its total to almost $613 million. At budget hearings, Police Commissioner Richard boasted an 11% increase in felony drug arrests and a 28% increase in misdemeanor arrests to justify the increase. 

Drug enforcement, meanwhile, could violate the same harm reduction principles cited in the city’s strategic plan.

Budgetary measures aside, the strategic plan’s main goals closely resemble those of the city’s $5.2 billion abatement plan, which was rejected by a judge last month in an ongoing lawsuit against two massive opioid distributors.

Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Lawrence P. Fletcher-Hill rejected the city’s request for billions in abatement money and ruled that he would allow for a new trial in the case against two opioid distributors in a landmark opioid trial, reversing a 2024 jury verdict that won the city $266 million in “public nuisance” damages.

Leading up to the judge’s ruling earlier this month, city officials had hoped the judge would leave the jury verdict untouched.

Instead, Fletcher-Hill tore apart the city’s argument and rejected the request, indicating the city likely won’t receive anywhere near the billions of dollars it had asked for — something that could hinder the implementation of the strategic plan.

The city’s initial deadline to decide whether to opt for a new trial or accept a whopping 80% reduction in its award, totaling less than $52 million, was July 7. That has since been delayed until August 8, and Fletcher-Hill is expected to rule on abatement about two weeks before that deadline.

Per the judge’s ruling, the city must either accept the smaller reward or once again go to trial to determine what the companies should pay in public nuisance damages. Abatement is a separate issue, where the judge will determine how much — if any — additional damages the companies must cover for the city to redress the crisis.

The post With a focus on harm reduction, Baltimore’s strategic plan looks to cut fatal overdoses 40% by 2040 appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

A third-party investigation into workplace misconduct at the West North Avenue Development Authority has been completed, Baltimore Beat has learned.

The investigation was launched after the Beat in April revealed numerous former employees’ allegations of misconduct against Executive Director Chad Williams dating back to 2023, including stalking and harassment. The article also unearthed that Williams had been hired despite previously being the subject of a federal investigation over his handling of sexual harassment complaints at a Nevada housing authority, accused of sexual harassment at two different workplaces, and convicted of domestic violence while actively leading an agency in Baltimore.

“I was taken aback by some of the allegations that were brought forward,” said State Delegate Marlon Amprey, a non-voting member of WNADA’s board who confirmed the existence of the investigation on June 30. “I take these allegations very seriously.”

Before Amprey confirmed the existence of the investigation to the Beat, all 20 board members ignored requests for comment about the allegations against Williams and remained mum about the allegations in the two months since the Beat’s article was published.

Amprey declined to provide the name of the law firm that conducted the investigation or its contents. He emphasized that it was not a criminal or civil investigation, but rather an investigation into allegations of workplace misconduct and a toxic work environment.

Amprey said he vocally supported the investigation, which was being called for by board members prior to the Beat’s article, he said. The only additional details that he provided were that the law firm was chosen by the state Attorney General’s Office.

The Attorney General’s Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Board members will now continue to discuss the report’s findings, which are expected to eventually be made public, Amprey added. From there, decisions will be made about whether its findings constitute criminal or civil investigations.

Governor Wes Moore, who sits on the board, declined to comment. Mayor Brandon Scott did not immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did any remaining members of the 20-person board.

WNADA’s next board meeting is at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, September 30, at Coppin State University.

Keyonna Penick, a former chief of staff and special assistant at WNADA who was with the organization for about one and a half years, called the investigation “bullshit.”

“I’m sure [Williams will] still find a way to flip this on the staff and taunt them to leave if unhappy,” Penick said. “The board is complicit.”

Penick joined WNADA in 2023 and was fired in March because of alleged performance issues. She was the first former employee to publicly call for Williams’ firing in an April 7 email sent to board members, current employees, and news outlets, recalling experiences she had and witnessed during her tenure at WNADA.

“I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge my own silence in the past. There were times when I saw the writing on the wall but convinced myself it wasn’t my fight. I needed my job. I justified my inaction, just as many of us do when survival takes precedence over principle. I won’t make that mistake again,” Penick wrote in the email.

WNADA is a state agency created in 2021 by bills sponsored by Amprey and Senator Antonio Hayes, both West Baltimore Democrats, to revitalize the West North Avenue corridor, which has seen decades of disinvestment. 

Williams became the authority’s founding executive director in 2022, tasked with building the agency from the ground up, creating a redevelopment plan for West North Avenue, and overseeing millions of dollars in funding. 

In the roughly three years he has helmed the agency, public officials have lauded his work to redevelop an area that has experienced disinvestment for decades.

Williams’ alleged misconduct came to light after Penick and multiple other women spoke to the Beat about how he reportedly harassed, stalked, and retaliated against employees since at least 2023.

Those employees accused Williams of targeting and humiliating women on the job, allegedly stalking one woman, and manipulating the grant process to favor certain entities.

Prior to joining WNADA, he was accused of sexual harassment “while serving as a board member for The Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington in Washington, D.C.,” according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “The accusation cost him his seat, but Williams has said that an investigation launched by the nonprofit coalition eventually discredited the claims,” the outlet reported. 

Six years later in Las Vegas, sexual harassment and age discrimination complaints against Williams, then executive director of the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority, led to more than $125,000 in settlements with two women, the Review-Journal reported. 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development also investigated the authority’s handling of sexual misconduct complaints against Theodore Tulle, the chief operating officer, under Williams’ tenure, the outlet reported. In February 2021, six months before the Review-Journal reported the news of the federal investigation, Williams was put on administrative leave until his contract expired that June.

More recently, court records show Williams was charged with misdemeanor and felony battery charges in Las Vegas after being arrested on New Year’s Day 2023 for “punching a sleeping woman, throwing her to the ground and kicking her in the ribs and face,” the Review-Journal reported. The woman was bruised and had dried blood on her face when police arrived after a 911 caller nearby reported hearing a woman crying and yelling “stop” inside the house, according to the article. The woman told police that Williams stopped her from calling 911.

Court records show he pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge in March of this year, after initially pleading not guilty to all the charges. The other charges were later dropped. 

Logan Hullinger can be contacted securely by email at logan.hullinger@protonmail.com or on Signal at loganhullinger.24. Anonymity can be provided upon request.

The post Investigation into WNADA director Chad Williams’ misconduct quietly completed after Baltimore Beat reporting appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Baltimore City Council President Zeke Cohen is calling for a hearing to examine the city’s crisis response systems after three Baltimore residents died or were killed during interactions with police officers “while experiencing behavioral health crises.”

“The City Council has fought for years to increase funding for Baltimore Crisis Response Inc because we know that law enforcement alone can not be expected to solve this problem,” he wrote in a statement.

On June 17, police shot 38 times at Bilal “BJ” Abdullah, killing the well-known arabber, near the Upton Metro station after Abdullah appeared to shoot at officers chasing him. A crowd of several hundred people gathered in West Baltimore to call for justice for Abdullah after his death, while family members and loved ones held a vigil and funeral for him.

The Attorney General’s office, which investigates police-involved fatalities in Maryland, announced on June 26 that it was investigating an incident from the night of June 24 in which a man who appeared to be having a mental health crisis was restrained by officers “for the man’s own safety” after he attempted to walk into the road several times. While in handcuffs and leg restraints, the man became unresponsive. When EMS didn’t arrive within the hour, officers took him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead several hours later.

On June 25, police shot and killed Pytorcarcha Brooks, a 70-year-old woman who was allegedly wielding a knife, while responding to calls about a behavioral health crisis on Mosher Street. They had responded to behavioral health calls at that address 20 times this year alone, Commissioner Richard Worley said. 

BPD has a single crisis response team for the entire city, which was in Remington the day of Brooks’ death for more than 16 hours responding to a man experiencing a behavioral crisis and threatening to jump from a 13th-floor balcony, spokesperson Lindsey Eldridge said in an email.

Eldridge said that when the crisis response team receives a call while they’re responding to another one, the team members “would be briefed on both situations and a determination would be made on where they would be most needed.”

A police department spokesperson did not respond to inquiries about whether the officers responding to Mosher Street were trained in crisis response, and it’s unclear whether the officers involved in the other incidents were, either.

“Our community is still dealing with the trauma of witnessing the tragic death of Bilal Abdullah in the Upton community. And now we also have to reckon with the loss of one of our village elders being killed when what she probably needed was help,” Aaron Maybin, chair of the Baltimore City Civilian Review Board, said in a statement. “I understand that police officers have one of the most difficult jobs there is, but they need to find a way to respond to these types of situations that doesn’t end with deadly force. A 70-year-old woman with a knife should be able to be disarmed and apprehended without shots being fired.” 

“The most frustrating thing about both of these situations over the past couple of weeks is that neither one of them had to end with our citizens being killed.”

In a 2019 report about gaps in BPD’s crisis response system after a federal consent decree named it a problem area for the department, the Human Services Research Institute noted the low rates of crisis intervention-trained officers responding to behavioral health calls. 

“It is critical that police officers be better prepared for such contacts, so that the individuals in crisis and the officers, family members, and other individuals responding to it are not at risk of further traumatization from the act of seeking help,” the report reads.

All incoming officers receive 24 hours of behavioral health training at the police academy and an annual eight hours or more of behavioral health work provided during in-service training, but CIT-trained officers become certified by attending a 40-hour specialized training in addition to an annual refresher training.

The report also noted that the city’s failure to adequately track data “hampered” the organization’s ability to thoroughly analyze responses to crises, though it was clear that the city needed to make a shift toward community-based solutions.

A February 2024 consent decree monitoring report recorded that approximately 10% of BPD patrol officers were crisis intervention trained, nowhere near the department’s goal of 30%.

In December 2024, the monitoring team reported that BPD reduced that goal to 20% of patrol officers and was meeting that, but the department was still not ensuring the presence of CIT-trained officers at behavioral crisis events. The report also found that BPD was not doing enough to interview and review potential CIT training candidates.

Police involvement in mental health crises has been heavily debated. The conversation in Baltimore comes as media reports show that, despite a decrease in violent crime nationwide, the number of people fatally shot by cops has increased every year since 2020. 

Though localized data was not immediately available, multiple studies have found that any police involvement in mental health crises can do far more harm than good. 

A  2021 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that “even when officers undergo training in these areas, research demonstrates that it is not effective.”

“In the United States, a police encounter with a civilian is 16 times as likely to result in that person’s death if they have an untreated mental illness as if they do not,” the study states. “Structural racism exacerbates this risk, placing Black men with mental illness at significant risk for dying from U.S. police violence. And each killing reinforces the link between Black racial identity and violent fates, worsening the mental health of Black Americans.”

BPD told the monitoring team ahead of the December report that the “deficiencies” had been addressed. The consent decree monitoring team planned a re-assessment for early 2025, but it’s unclear whether that’s been conducted. The team did not respond to requests for comment.

Because this portion of the consent decree requires collaboration with other entities, the city and the Department of Justice agreed to a set of guidelines in 2023 that outline the city’s specific obligations, which include “Auditing and reviewing significant behavioral health events that resulted or nearly resulted in serious negative outcomes.”

In 2021, Baltimore launched the Behavioral Health 9-1-1 Diversion Pilot Program, which aims to avoid police involvement in behavioral health crises by diverting calls to mental health professionals. 

Under the program, if a 911 operator deems that a caller is in a crisis, they can direct the caller to the 988 help line operated by trained mental health clinicians.

“The central mission of this pilot program is to match individuals to the most appropriate and available resources when they call for assistance and reduce unnecessary police encounters with people in behavioral crises,” according to the program’s website.

Available data shows that, between June 2021 and February 2025, there were 3,968 crisis calls, 18% of which were unable to be diverted. The data shows that police still had a visible presence in behavioral health matters, with police involved in 44% of all calls during this time.

Calls peaked in 2022, when there were more than 1,500 incidents reported. The number has been on the decline since, with 55 calls as of February this year.

The diversion program is ongoing, said Adrienne Breidenstine, the vice president for policy and communications at Behavioral Health System Baltimore, which partnered with the city on the program. Mobile crisis teams, which do not include police, can be deployed through the 988 help line.

Madeleine O’Neill contributed reporting.

The post City’s crisis response system under scrutiny after three police-involved deaths in eight days appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Baltimore agencies have activated emergency heat protocols and halted evictions in response to dangerously high temperatures this week, marking the beginning of another scorching summer.

Heat index values are expected to exceed 110 degrees this week, prompting the National Weather Service to issue an extreme heat warning. The Baltimore City Health Department’s first Code Red Extreme Heat Alert of the year went into effect on June 22 and will last through June 26. Cooling stations have been opened throughout the city — with additional locations activated due to rising temperatures — and the sheriff’s office has paused eviction enforcement during that time under a new state law.

“The health and safety of Baltimore’s residents is the City’s foremost priority as we head into this season’s first period of sustained high heat in our region,” Mayor Brandon Scott said in a statement. “The city is taking every step and precaution necessary to protect residents and city workers during this heat wave. That is why I strongly urge every resident to take proper precautions, check on vulnerable friends and family, and use our City-designated cooling centers.”

A list of cooling centers, most of which offer Wi-Fi, and recommendations for staying safe in the heat can be found here. On June 24, the city opened additional centers. The new locations can be found here.

In addition to the cooling centers, the health department’s recommendations include the following: 

• Drink plenty of water 
• Avoid alcohol and caffeine 
• Reduce outdoor activities 
• Stay inside during the hottest time of day (11 a.m. to 4 p.m.) 
• Seek relief from the heat in air-conditioned locations 
• Check on older adults and vulnerable individuals in your community who may need assistance in the heat 

This week’s temperatures come on the heels of a new state law designed to increase protections for residents during extreme weather conditions.

Under the Renters’ Rights and Stabilization Act, which went into effect in 2024, jurisdictions are prohibited from carrying out evictions “during extreme weather conditions affecting the property, including below-freezing temperatures, or winter storm or blizzard warnings, hurricane or tropical storm warnings, and excessive heat warnings issued by the National Weather Service.”

On June 22, the Baltimore City Sheriff’s Office announced that evictions would be paused through June 26, lasting for the same period of time as the Code Red Extreme Heat Alert.

“Residents of residential properties scheduled for eviction should be aware that the extreme weather only postpones the eviction for the duration of the heat wave,” a press release from the sheriff’s office stated.

“Additionally, the new law mandates that the Baltimore City Sheriff’s Office must reschedule the postponed evictions within five days of the end of the excessive heat warning, and it does not require a reposting of the property with the updated eviction date.”

The extreme temperatures this week mark a continuation of what some experts have considered the new normal, comprising increasingly hot summers due to climate change and other factors.

Dan Hofmann, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, said the temperatures are high but “not unheard of.”

“We’re kind of in-between normal and what would be considered record [temperatures],” Hofmann said. 

Earlier this month, a new outlook from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Prediction Center forecasted a warmer-than-usual summer this year in the Baltimore area. Previously, both 2023 and 2024 saw the hottest temperatures on record.

The state health department’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner reported six heat-related deaths in Baltimore last year. There have been no heat-related deaths reported so far this year.

The post Extreme heat in Baltimore prompts ‘code red’ alert, eviction pause appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

At first glance, it may seem that the War on Drugs has all but disappeared in Baltimore. The decades-long campaign decimated Black neighborhoods and fueled mass incarceration in the city under the guise of public safety.

From more than 7,000 arrests in 2015 to less than 2,000 in 2024, the number of people being arrested for drug crimes has plummeted. Public officials seem to have formed a  consensus — one reflected more so in words than in actions — about the importance of harm reduction in place of a punitive approach to drug use.

Look closer, however, and it’s evident that the driving force behind the drug war has only gotten worse. 

In a staggering indictment of policing in Baltimore, a Baltimore Beat analysis of police data shows that nearly all people arrested and charged with drug crimes in Baltimore are Black — even though studies show that drug use rates among the Black population are similar to those of other races. Meanwhile, a change in priorities at the State’s Attorney’s Office caused low-level drug charges to surge. Police are slated to receive an increase to their already exorbitant budget in part to crack down harder on drug crimes, while the health department’s funding could be decimated as they try to help those who use them.

At the same time, death rates among older Black men skyrocketed in the last decade. 

The Beat’s analysis covered tens of thousands of misdemeanor and felony drug arrest records obtained from the Baltimore Police Department through a Public Information Act request. The dataset, spanning from 2015 to 2024, was sorted by race and ZIP code and analyzed in conjunction with publicly available overdose data and population data from the American Community Survey, an annual demographics survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Lawrence Grandpre, the policy director of Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, a grassroots, Black-led think tank in Baltimore, said the data demonstrates how “racialized social control” has maintained racial hierarchies and inequality in Baltimore.

“A couple of things are happening. One is that it’s muscle memory for cops,” Grandpre said. “You need to continuously justify the massive amounts of money that they take from the community.”

“There is also racialized stigma around the notion of the Black drug addict and the Black drug seller, the Black drug seller being a driver of violence through narratives that reach back but also the idea of the Black addict as uniquely dangerous in their intoxication, as opposed to … public health frames of empathy and solidarity around white drug addicts.”

In 2015, the same year Freddie Gray died at the hands of the Baltimore Police Department and the city erupted in calls for criminal justice reform, about 84% of those arrested on drug charges — including both misdemeanors and felonies — were Black people. 

That number peaked at 96% in 2021, the same year the city was devastated by the most fatal overdoses ever recorded in a single year. A little over 1,000 deaths that year were attributed to overdoses, more than two-thirds of whom were Black, according to data from the Maryland Department of Health.

In 2024, 92.5% of those arrested for drug charges were Black. 

Catherine Tomko, a social scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the extent to which Black Baltimoreans are arrested is disproportionately high, even in the context of racist policing nationwide. The most recent U.S. Census Bureau figures show the city is 60% Black.

“Considering the history of policing in Baltimore, I am not completely surprised by those numbers,” Tomko said.

“The inflection point obviously is the death of Freddie Gray and the uprisings that happened. It created a big spotlight on Baltimore policing and its practices. And when the Department of Justice came in and investigated, they found really egregious, racist practices that targeted the Black community.”

Baltimore saw a spike in violent crime and homicides after Gray died in police custody, with a significant decline seen only in the past couple of years, as national numbers also dropped. The part of the story that tends to be overlooked is the concurrent — and intertwined — surge in overdose deaths. 

The year of Gray’s death, fatal overdose rates of white and Black men ages 55 and older were nearly identical, data from the Maryland Department of Health shows. The death rate among Black men in that age range skyrocketed as years passed.

By 2023, the death rate of older Black men reached an all-time high of 697 deaths per 100,000 people, more than doubling that of white men. Baltimore saw a historic drop in overdose deaths the following year, yet the death rate for Black men remained about 88% higher than white men.

“For many people, they don’t have access to methadone or anything to keep their tolerance up,” Grandpre said. “So when they get out of jail, they have a lower tolerance for this very toxic drug supply, setting them up for a fatal overdose.”

“On top of that, you just have general life instability, where you may have some tentative employment or housing, but the criminal justice system puts you in a position where those things become more tenuous. Those things can put you at risk of an overdose.”

Policing in Baltimore can’t be talked about as simply an effort to keep communities safe. Its impact on public health and overdose prevention efforts in the city has been devastating.

Arrest data analyzed by the Beat demonstrates that drug enforcement over the past 10 years has focused on majority-Black neighborhoods located in east and west Baltimore, which are also the areas with some of the highest fatal overdose rates in the city.

In poorer, majority-Black neighborhoods such as those in ZIP code 21216 in West Baltimore, as many as 98% of people arrested on drug charges over the last 10 years were Black, according to calculations based on demographic data from the 2023 American Community Survey.

Even in areas with majority-white populations, such as ZIP codes 21224 in Southeast Baltimore, the majority of people charged with drug crimes in the past decade were Black, according to the data. That area also has a relatively high overdose death toll.

(The arrest numbers could fluctuate slightly, as some arrests contained errors in ZIP codes. For example, more than 120 ZIP codes were simply listed as “0.” Gender data was not included in the dataset, though it’s well-documented that Black men are arrested and incarcerated at significantly higher rates.)

Despite the severity of the growing overdose crisis, the spotlight largely remained fixated on violent crime. Yet, like homicides, fatal overdoses have disproportionately affected Black communities over the years. 

Cops and city officials have denied racial profiling and claimed the drug arrest data shows the impact of strategic policing that focuses on where the bulk of crime occurs. 

“The BPD prioritizes enforcement efforts on drug-related activities that contribute to violence, such as trafficking and distribution by organized criminal networks. Enforcement strategies continue to evolve, focusing on dismantling open-air drug markets and addressing addiction through a public health lens, including diversion programs and drug court. Officers also address cases where substance use contributes to broader public safety concerns,” BPD spokesperson Lindsey Eldridge said.

Enforcement efforts tend not to have the intended effect of curbing fatal overdoses or violent crime, according to numerous studies.

In fact, they may have the opposite impact, a study in the International Journal of Drug Policy shows. 

"From an evidence-based public policy perspective and based on several decades of available data, the existing scientific evidence suggests drug law enforcement contributes to gun violence and high homicide rates and that increasingly sophisticated methods of disrupting organizations involved in drug distribution could paradoxically increase violence,” the study found. 

A 2023 study conducted by Harvard University argued that drug enforcement can also increase overdose death rates by disrupting the drug supply and pushing drug users toward riskier sources, a phenomenon known as the “Iron Law of Prohibition.” 

Against the backdrop of decades of drug-war propaganda, nixing enforcement in favor of other approaches may seem radical to some. Yet harm reductionists in Baltimore and beyond recognize the damage that heavy-handed policing has caused for decades, advocating instead for a compassionate, evidence-based approach to drug policy.

“The War on Drugs is fundamentally a system of punishment and control, not care. It hasn’t reduced drug-related deaths, use, or manufacturing; but it has devastated communities, especially Black and Brown ones,” said Darci Curwen-Garber, policy manager of the Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition.

“When we use punitive drug laws to ‘remove the problem,’ what we’re really doing is removing people — disappearing them through incarceration, policing, and stigma.”

City officials, however, have found themselves unable — or unwilling — to let go of punitive drug enforcement and the millions of dollars it takes to bankroll the cops who carry it out.

Mayor Brandon Scott’s budget, approved by the City Council on June 16, includes a more than $20 million increase to the police department’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year, bringing its total to almost $613 million. As of 2020, the city spent more per capita on its police department than any other U.S. city, according to a study by the nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice.

At a budget hearing earlier this month, Police Commissioner Richard Worley touted an 11% increase in felony drug arrests and a 28% increase in misdemeanor arrests since last year. More money is needed, he argued, to continue these efforts and cover overtime costs.

The fiscal plan also includes a $7 million cut to the health department, marking a 3.5% decrease from the year prior. At $201 million, its budget is less than one-third of that of the police department — and nearly half of that comes from federal funding that could be lost because of President Donald Trump’s barrage of cost-cutting measures.

Those impacted by drug enforcement spoke to the Beat about a pattern of targeted enforcement that often creates a carceral cycle for Black Baltimoreans.

Eric Monroe grew up in East Baltimore, where both drug arrest rates and fatal overdose rates remain relatively high. Like many Black youth growing up in poverty in Baltimore, Monroe followed the lead of his environment.

His parents and other adults in his life were “caught up in the drug life,” and when he and his friends needed money, selling drugs seemed like the obvious way to get it.

Monroe soon faced drug charges, leaving him with a criminal record in his teens. He served his first stint in prison at 19. 

Monroe, now 44, said he regrets his actions, though he spoke of the feeling of hopelessness as a young Black person and how that feeling can deter people like himself from fighting charges, even in the absence of solid evidence. 

“If I get caught with a drug charge and a court date, you feel like you’ve already been convicted,” he said. 

“There’s a stigma for us African American people that we are guilty until proven innocent. You can’t win because they are the authorities. They have the last say in how this can end up. Either they can let you walk away or make the rest of your life miserable.”

The police didn’t let Monroe walk away. The damage was done, and the initial drug charges escalated into more serious crimes and longer sentences as he sought approval from the streets. 

Though he is free today and on a better path, it remains part of his history.

Terry Speaks, who got out of prison on a 10-year sentence in 2024 for robbery charges, became addicted to pills at a young age, and turned to what he was surrounded by to feed his habit: selling. The cops eventually caught up to him as he attempted to manage his addiction.

Speaks, now 50 and a certified peer recovery coach, works as a leadership development organizer for the nonprofit Out For Justice, a Baltimore-based nonprofit that helps reconnect individuals to society post-incarceration. He grew up in Park Heights, an area with some of the most overdose deaths and drug arrests in the city, and Woodlawn. He echoed Monroe’s feelings of hopelessness at a young age.

“I feel like I was railroaded when I was young,” Speaks said. “My family didn’t have a lot of money. And when I was in prison, they didn’t offer any help or nothing. If you didn’t take it upon yourself to rehabilitate yourself, you didn’t get any type of guidance in prison at a young age. It was just a continuous cycle.”

A leg injury he suffered in adulthood fueled Speaks’s addiction. He resorted to robbery to fund his substance use, escalating his crimes in pursuit of drugs. His choices perpetuated a carceral cycle similar to Monroe’s.

As Baltimore residents deal with the lasting impact of drug prohibition, organizations like the Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition, Charm City Care Connection, and Bmore POWER have stepped in to work alongside the health department to ensure those who use drugs stay alive.

Together, they’ve offered sterile syringes and safe smoking kits to prevent the spread of diseases like HIV. They’ve distributed innumerable doses of naloxone, which reverses overdose deaths, along with test strips for fentanyl and xylazine — the latter of which is increasingly found in the drug supply and is resistant to naloxone.

To prevent further overdose deaths, these organizations are calling for the city to do more, perhaps most notably by implementing overdose prevention centers (OPCs) and decriminalizing drug “paraphernalia.”

By giving drug users a safe, judgement-free place to use substances — without having to worry about cops — OPCs would reduce overdose deaths, they argue. They also argue that paraphernalia decriminalization would allow people to utilize syringe service programs without fear that they could be arrested for possessing the supplies they receive there. 

Bills in the Maryland General Assembly to implement those measures have repeatedly died in committee in recent years.

“So many of the overdoses and drug harms that are happening [in Maryland] happen in Baltimore City,” said Tomko, whose studies at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health focus on drugs and marginalized populations. “So I do think that some of it is a racist idea of, ‘Whatever happens to that community happens to that community,’ so there isn’t as much of a political will and urgency.”

Mayor Scott has the authority to unilaterally impose measures such as OPCs, though he has repeatedly declined to comment on the matter despite naming both pieces of state legislation as two of his 21 “legislative priorities” this year.

Meanwhile, State’s Attorney Ivan Bates has done away with the de facto decriminalization policy instituted by his predecessor Marilyn Mosby in 2020, taking the city back to the days of former Mayor Martin O’Malley and zero-tolerance policing.

In Bates’s first year in office in 2023, all drug charges surged to 4,913, a 91% increase over the year prior. Misdemeanor drug charges, which were the subject of the de facto decriminalization policy, increased nearly 20-fold, from 113 to 2,108.

Racial disparities in arrests worsened under both states’ attorneys.

Though data on racial demographics of those incarcerated in Baltimore is limited, a 2022 report by Mosby’s office and researchers from the University of Maryland and Howard University found that Black defendants “face more serious charges and are overrepresented in violent, firearms and drug offenses” and “more than 1 in 3 cases involve drug charges as the most serious offense.”

Heather Pfeifer, executive director of the University of Baltimore’s School of Criminal Justice, said the new arrest data raises questions about the city’s approach to drug enforcement.

“If we don't have an honest conversation about this, it jeopardizes the legitimacy of the relationship between the police and the community.”

Both the mayor and Bates would not directly address questions about racial profiling in policing and prosecution. Bates’s office declined to comment, and Scott pointed to a historic decline in homicides and progress in the police department’s 2017 consent decree.

However, eight years later, a federal judge has found the police department to be fully compliant in only five of 17 sections of the decree. Notably, it has not been found in full compliance with sections dealing with discriminatory practices in stops, searches, and arrests.

“While BPD is committed to fair and impartial policing, it recognizes the need to address disparities in law enforcement outcomes,” Eldridge said. “The department continues to implement bias training, increase transparency in data reporting and expand community engagement efforts to ensure equitable policing practices.”

Eldridge pointed the Beat to a November 2023 assessment by the BPD’s Consent Decree Monitoring Team, which noted that there was “no statistically significant pattern” in regard to race among cases that lacked probable cause.

The same assessment says, “Compared to the overall Baltimore population, arrest subjects in the reviewed samples were disproportionately Black.”

In 2025, it’s unclear how — or if — Baltimore will break from its history of punitive drug policy.

Despite pouring money into the police department while cutting funds to the city’s public health authority, the mayor and city officials have vowed to more strongly embrace harm reduction initiatives.

A silver lining may be imminent thanks to hundreds of millions of dollars in opioid restitution funds that the city has won from opioid-related lawsuits. However, the city will likely receive less than it had anticipated.

On June 12, a judge rejected the city’s request for two opioid distributors to pay $5.2 billion to cover the city’s abatement plan and also reversed a jury verdict in the first phase of the trial that awarded the city $266 million in “public nuisance” damages.

The city must decide by July 7 if it will accept a massive cut to its winnings to avoid a new trial, after which abatement would be re-evaluated. With the development, Baltimore’s total winnings from lawsuits could end up significantly less than the BPD’s annual budget — and the opioid money is meant to be spread out over 15 years.

Of the roughly $37 million in restitution funds Baltimore has already received and is slated to allocate in the upcoming fiscal year, more than $3 million has already been proposed for supplanting existing funding streams instead of building on current harm reduction efforts. Public health experts have strongly cautioned against the practice, including the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Meanwhile, the police and public officials continue to boast about drug busts, flaunting photos of seized weapons and drugs such as fentanyl. On Capitol Hill, the synthetic opioid has also become a rallying cry for President Trump and his administration. 

Republicans have sought to designate fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction” and have weaponized it to demonize immigrants and other minorities — echoing the drug-war rhetoric of former presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

And now Democrats, just as former President Bill Clinton did with the 1994 Crime Bill, are joining in to expand mandatory minimum sentences with the HALT Fentanyl Act.

The administration is pushing to slash billions in funding for local health departments and freeze grants to entities such as harm reduction organizations, putting their overdose prevention efforts in jeopardy.

“If we’re serious about saving lives, then our drug policies need to be designed with one clear goal: to protect and support all people who use drugs,” said Curwen-Garber, policy manager of the Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition.

“Until that happens, our loved ones — and yours — will keep dying.”

The post  In Baltimore’s drug war, ‘public safety’ comes before public health. Nearly everyone impacted is Black appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

A new date is just one of many changes to expect this year at Artscape. This weekend’s festival will have new installations, a divisive new location, and a redefined approach under new leadership. 

Unlike with iterations past, Artscape will take place this year on Memorial Day Weekend underneath the Jones Falls Expressway, its columns freshly painted with new murals to commemorate the festival’s new home downtown. The hope, its organizers say, is that relocating the festival will ultimately reinvigorate the downtown district. 

“Artscape started in Mount Vernon, where MICA, The Lyric, and the BSO were kind of like the heartbeat of the festival. The impact that it had on that district was vast,” said Tonya Miller Hall, creative director of Artscape and Senior Advisor of Arts and Culture for the mayor’s office.

“When we think about how we can use the festival model to transform space and create more sustainability for the community, downtown — particularly the farmers market footprint — really needed a bit of a [boost.]”

But hours away from the festival’s first day, it faces a series of challenges. Already, talent cancellations at the last minute have left participating artists in the dark. Small businesses in Station North, the former home of Artscape, won’t benefit financially as they usually do from their proximity this time around. Relocating the festival beneath the Jones Falls Expressway means that the Baltimore Farmers Market won’t operate Sunday. And the clearing of an encampment in the festival’s planned footprint displaced unhoused locals, though the city denied specifically doing so in preparation of the event.

While Miller Hall acknowledges the friction caused by uprooting a Baltimore tradition, she believes it’s time for Artscape and its impact to expand further. 

“Baltimoreans have got to think more expansively about the city of the future,” she said. 

“People love this festival, and it has been a big part of the Station North District for a long time. But can we not spread the love, take art on the road, and let other neighborhoods benefit from the work of artists?”

For most of its duration, Artscape took place in July — and almost always coincidentally on the hottest three days of the year. With hopes of cooler temperatures this time around, the festival is scheduled for Memorial Day Weekend from May 24-25. For the first time, the 43-year-old event — known as the nation’s largest free outdoor art festival — will move to downtown Baltimore after being held in Mount Vernon, Station North, and Bolton Hill throughout the years.

Artscape will now be held outside of City Hall beneath the Jones Falls Expressway on East Saratoga and Holliday streets. The Baltimore Farmers Market, which takes place beneath the expressway each Sunday from mid-April through December 21 this year, will be closed for the festival. 

The Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts ran the festival for 20 years until last October, when it was announced that the city would be terminating its contract with BOPA. This will be Artscape’s first year under Mayor Brandon Scott’s Downtown Rise Initiative, which was introduced last year with the intention of continuing the progress and development of downtown Baltimore. 

To help with that, Artscape has several new events in store this year. Curated by visual artist and performer Derrick Adams and Baltimore Beat’s Arts & Culture Editor Teri Henderson, the new Scout Art Fair will give guests a chance to shop for local, affordable artwork. All pieces will be priced between $150 and $5,000, and a portion of the proceeds will go towards BOPA programming. 

Another Artscape first is the “Oasis Mural Project,” which the Mayor’s office created to rejuvenate the pillars of the Jones Falls Expressway.  Over the last several weeks, more than 30 local artists — including Ernest Shaw, Camila Leão Lopes, HOPE McCorkle, and Paige Orpin — have transformed the underpass into a tropical oasis.

“[The artists] are excited because they feel like they’re part of a live mural festival,” said Miller Hall.

“Everybody’s vibing and listening to music. The residents and people who are parking their cars are just in awe. And the city workers are like, ‘Oh my God. These guys are so brilliant! I can’t believe they’re painting these columns by hand!’”

Already, Miller Hall is proud to see how this year’s festival model has managed to take care of not just artists but the public, calling Artscape an “economic engine for the city.”

“We have put so many artists to work,” she said. 

“With the murals, with the installations, and with the Scout Fair, so many artists are going to make money. While people may be frustrated that it’s not in Station North, year over year, vendors have lost money — artists have lost money — because of the weather. We’ve tried to address that and create some cover for that so that they’re not losing time,”  she said.

While scoping out its new additions, Artscape-goers can expect returning programming and two stages of live music. Joining nationally acclaimed R&B legends Fantasia Barrino and Robin Thicke, performers on both Saturday and Sunday include local acts like Movakween, Bad Hombres, Ari and the Buffalo Kings, and members of the local nonprofit Ballet After Dark. Artscape regulars can look forward to annual events like the festival’s signature artisan market, and Kidscape, which will feature interactive storytelling, hands-on art activities, and kid-friendly performances.

The concept of a reimagined festival has mixed reviews. Many in Baltimore look forward to enjoying this year’s festival in spring instead of summer, when high temperatures can be dangerous to seniors, younger children, and heat-sensitive guests. And with last year’s heavy rainout, people are also relieved that this year’s festival will be under a bridge, should nasty weather strike.

Miller Hall  also thinks that Artscape’s new and smaller footprint will increase its walkability. She shared that on a recent visit to the underpass, Walking Discovery, a social group that advocates for neurodivergent and disabled Baltimoreans, was pleased with the location.

Yet the decision to move Artscape downtown has seemingly impacted more than just Baltimore’s arts community. The move to a new location coincided with the city clearing an encampment under the Jones Falls Expressway, though city officials have insisted it had nothing to do with the event.

On April 7, the city “resolved” an encampment under the JFX, said Jessica Dortch, spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office of Homeless Services. It’s estimated that as many as 30 unsheltered individuals were “residing or passing through” the JFX footprint at any given time.

“Most residents accepted shelter and other services offered by Outreach teams, while others were able to make alternative arrangements,” Dortch said, adding that the services include shelter, behavioral health support, transportation and housing navigation services.

“MOHS does not displace residents, we connect residents to shelter and other supportive services that meet their individual needs. This site was assessed and prioritized for resolution with increased daily engagement occurring months in advance of the Artscape location and date announcement.”

Encampments such as the site under the JFX are “assessed and prioritized based on several risk and environmental factors such as proximity to critical infrastructure, health and safety hazards, and ongoing community concerns,” she added.

The big changes hitting Artscape itself haven’t been rolled out as smoothly as hoped either, leaving a number of artists and farmers’ market vendors with complaints.

JaySwann, an electronic artist, producer and DJ, said an Artscape organizer reached out to him in March asking if he’d perform a DJ set at Artscape. After he didn’t hear back for weeks, he reached back out, and they confirmed that he’d be performing.

After they said they’d be sending him a contract, more weeks went by. When he reached out again on Friday, he was informed that the DJ set had been cancelled because of budgetary concerns.

“It was definitely unfortunate,” he said. “When I first got the news, I was pretty pissed off. I’d been looking forward to it; I’ve been living in Baltimore my whole life. It was going to be a kind of full-circle moment for me because I used to go all the time as a kid. I told my whole family about it, and they were really excited. On top of that, the rate they were going to give me was really good.”

After the news sank in, JaySwann said he reached back out to offer to perform for free. He was told that couldn’t happen, he said. 

As a performer, he said he’s been “trying to wrap my mind around” the decision to move Artscape downtown. Given the fact that past events had been rained out, it made sense to move it up earlier in the year.

The new location, however, could do more harm than good, he said. By moving the location downtown, the city is interfering with other events, such as the Baltimore Farmers’ Market that takes place every Sunday. It will be closed for Artscape this year.

The  reimagined festival will take place at the same time as some other hard-to-miss events in Baltimore like Deathfest, Brew at the Zoo, and the Sowebo Arts and Music Festival.

“I don’t really agree with that. I feel like they’re taking money out of other people’s pockets to make this event go well, but it’s not a guarantee that’s going to happen,” JaySwann said. 

“It seems like they’re really trying to get it right, but they keep missing the mark,” he said. “I don’t know what they could do at this point. I haven’t been to Artscape in quite a long time, but the last few times I went, it was underwhelming and didn’t seem properly planned. It seems like they’re just kind of throwing shit at a wall.”

In a recent Facebook post, Baltimore Farmers Market vendor Albright Farms said staff were saddened by the city’s choice to close the market to make room for Artscape.

 Although Miller Hall told Baltimore Beat that all vendors were notified of the decision to move Artscape to the Jones Falls Expressway in January, the post alleges otherwise. 

“This market has served Baltimore residents for 48 years and is a vital source of fresh vegetables, fruits, meats, milk, and more for thousands in the community. The decision was made without any conversation with the farmers or public — and we, like many, are deeply disappointed,” the post read.

And like other business owners in Station North, Eric Mach, the owner of the Metro Gallery, was upset to learn that Artscape was no longer in the neighborhood, known for its vibrant art district.

“To be honest, it was a little bit heartbreaking,” said Mach, a Baltimore native, about the festival’s relocation.

“We’re located in Station North, literally right in the middle of Artscape, and every year, this was our big weekend. Tons of different events every year were curated by [our staff], and it was something we looked forward to.”

Mach said he and his staff had been planning for Artscape some months in advance before learning that it would be moving downtown. 

“We were like ‘What? It’s moving where? Why is it not in the Arts District?’ It just didn’t make sense,” Mach said.

“We haven’t had any condolences or anything. We found out like everyone else.”

While the new footprint is difficult for many to accept, Miller Hall thinks the big swing will be worth it.  She looks at this year’s Artscape plans and sees major potential.

“I think two things can be true at the same time,” she continued. “Station North can still be a vibrant art district and do vibrant, art-focused things without Artscape. Artscape should not have to belong to one neighborhood only.”

The post Baltimore Braces for A New Artscape Experience appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

This story was published in partnership in Mobtown Redux.

Despite growing objections from harm reduction workers in Baltimore, the city’s Board of Estimates on Wednesday approved Mayor Brandon Scott’s fiscal year 2026 budget that allocates tens of millions of opioid restitution dollars without the input of the newly appointed advisory board.

At Scott’s budget town hall at Coppin State University on May 6, about a dozen harm reduction workers from a variety of organizations questioned officials about his $4.7 billion budget proposal. The cadre of organizers expected significantly more grant opportunities for harm reduction organizations in the budget, and the Opioid Restitution Advisory Board’s seemingly small role in directing those funds raised flags as they demanded a swift and powerful response to the overdose crisis.

Scott described the issue as a “miscommunication” about how the restitution board functions after the Board of Estimates vote and said the issue was “resolved.” Those who work on the frontlines of the crisis, however, didn’t seem satisfied.

“What I’m hearing is that there will be a time and place for the board, and now is not that time — yet,” said Molly Greenberg, one of the organizers who works as harm reduction program manager at Health Care for the Homeless.

“I have the experience of getting to work with people [who use drugs] and talk with people, and when people are sharing their stories every day, you hear some things that are just unfathomable. It’s really hard to hear things like, ‘It’s going to be a multi-pronged process.’ I understand the need to do this carefully, especially with the history of corruption in Baltimore City, but people’s lives are at stake.”

The town hall came one week after the restitution board’s second meeting, where members were shocked to learn that they’d only have discretion over just $2 million of the funds that would be allocated to community organizations. The revelation raised questions about the role they can play in guiding how a windfall of opioid restitution funds are spent in a transparent manner.

At the meeting, the mayor’s administration broke the news via PowerPoint slides. While the mayor has the last say in how the funds will be used, the board has been hailed as part of a new chapter in combating the overdose crisis — one that is guided by those who have been personally impacted by addiction and drug use.

The board was created to oversee the city’s Opioid Restitution Fund, which holds money from opioid-related settlements and lawsuits. The money sits in a trust and accrues interest as it is distributed over 15 years. 

Scott created the 20-person board through an executive order last year, and its members were sworn in earlier this year. The board is composed of city officials, public health workers and those with lived experience — all of whom were selected for their expertise and familiarity with the impact of the overdose crisis.

“This executive order will ensure that restitution funds are governed responsibly, transparently, and effectively in order to support our residents and communities most affected by the epidemic — not just during this administration, but for years to come,” Scott said after signing the executive order creating the board last August.

Less than a year later, members of the board he created — and the organizations it may fund — say the rollout has been a confounding process that may not fund overdose response and prevention initiatives to their full potential.

The millions of dollars in predetermined community grants in the mayor’s budget are just a portion of the total $87 million dedicated by five settlement agreements reached last year. When factoring in $20 million Scott’s administration gave to the health department, $107 million has been earmarked from the restitution fund without any input from the board.

“We know that the initial year is a little different because the judge said that things have to go to these places, and we wouldn’t have that money otherwise, so we’re not going to complain about that,” Scott said. “The whole point of this is to make sure we have it last for 15 years and that we have significant investment not only in the people, but the organizations that are doing the work that can help get us out of this.”

Harm reduction workers said they understood that the process of allocating restitution funds is new to the city, with this year marking the first that restitution funds would be included in the budget. 

In response, the mayor and his administration have said that the board would have more influence over allocating funds in future budgets, which would include requests for proposals submitted by organizations.

Yet waiting another year for a more transparent process is inadequate, given the need for immediate action as drug users in Baltimore continue to die at astronomically high rates, organizers said.

“Every hour, every minute, every second that organizations aren’t properly funded, people die,” said Dave Fell, an outreach manager at the Behavioral Health Leadership Institute. “The quicker that we can strategically get together and say, ‘What really needs to be funded now to save the most lives today,’ the better. That’s clearly what we’re going to have to do.”

Candy Kerr, spokesperson and policy advocate for the Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition, said the situation was frustrating, especially considering harm reduction organizations such as the BHRC were under the impression the funds could usher in a new chapter in the city’s response to the crisis.

The overdose crisis demands a radical response, such as overdose prevention centers, she said, yet the city’s overdose prevention strategy seems to continue to rely on piecemeal efforts that have proven insufficient.

“Everything takes a really long time, and everything needs to go through so many different layers of red tape,” Kerr said.  “It’s never going to be fast enough unless they just give people money.”

“I think I would be much happier with the lack of transparency if radical actions were being taken. It would be a different conversation.”

Under the budget proposal, nearly $20 million would head directly to community organizations that provide harm reduction and addiction treatment services. The vast majority of that grant money would be for 22 organizations named in settlements reached with opioid manufacturers and distributors last year, leaving the board with only a small fraction of that to consider.

The remainder of the nearly $37 million in restitution funds would be allocated to city agencies — again without the input of board members.

“They got earmarked funding; it is theirs, and we have to give it to them or we give it back to the company,” said Sara Whaley, the city’s executive director of overdose response. “But we are not just writing them a check. There has been extensive technical assistance working with them about what they want to do, and how that aligns with what we see the need [to be].”

Yet that still didn’t seem to jive with organizers at the town hall.

Katie Rodriguez, founder of Grey Matters, which provides mental health and harm reduction services, said funding should be strategically allocated to organizations that put harm reduction supplies into the hands of drug users themselves.

“Ultimately, people who use drugs are the ones who are most likely to reverse overdoses,” Rodriguez said. “Yes, firefighters are showing up to the scene, but if you’re looking at the real overdose numbers and talking to the people out there, it’s people keeping each other alive all the time who are not paid for that at all.”

Despite these concerns, the Board of Estimates approved the budget Wednesday without discussing restitution funds, sending it to the Baltimore City Council, indicating the city plans to move forward setting in stone a fiscal plan that not only has prompted backlash from harm reduction advocates but also the board that oversees them.

“I have to voice my deep, deep concerns about that,” said board member Meredith Kerr (no relation to Candy Kerr), who provides harm reduction services at the Behavioral Health Leadership Institute and SPARC Women’s Center, at the board’s meeting last week.

Other board members added to the list of concerns, questioning the use of restitution funds to replace existing funding streams in a controversial practice known as supplantation. 

In March, amid news that President Donald Trump planned to slash billions of dollars in public health spending and freeze funds that could benefit harm reduction organizations, both city officials and board members expressed fears that the money would be used to “hold the dam” rather than augment harm reduction efforts.

Exactly one week later, Scott unveiled his proposed budget — and it did just that.

The budget calls for $3.3 million for the city’s syringe service program, 911 nurse triage program, and population health program to be taken from the restitution fund rather than the city’s general fund, officials have said.

“I would refer to our city council colleagues to ensure that when these budget discussions are happening, and you’re looking at these budgets, that this money — someone at the Tuerk Conference called it ‘blood money’ for people who died for this thing — is not going to something that has already been funded, and we’ve just decided we’ll use this money for that,” said board member Carlos Hardy, who spent more than 30 years offering substance use disorder treatment in Baltimore.

Overall, the city is slated to receive nearly $670 million from five settlements and a jury verdict late last year in the first phase of an ongoing case against distributors McKesson and Cencora, formerly AmerisourceBergen. About $206 million has already been received, officials have said.

Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Lawrence P. Fletcher-Hill will soon rule on whether the two companies must pay Baltimore $5.2 billion to fund the city’s abatement plan. The judge initially said he would rule by Wednesday, though he recently altered the deadline to June 6, according to court records.

The decision will come as funding for public health is at risk in Baltimore. 

President Donald Trump is attempting to slash billions in federal spending for local health departments and public health initiatives as part of a barrage of cost-cutting measures. In addition, his administration has attempted to freeze federal grants, some of which benefit local harm reduction organizations.

Scott’s proposed budget already includes $23 million in cuts to the health department’s budget, seemingly negating the $20 million infusion in restitution funds and marking a more than 11% decrease from the year prior. Officials attributed this to declining state and federal aid.

On the other hand, the proposed budget would allocate $9.8 million to overdose response and prevention services, an 87% increase over the year prior — yet that number could change depending on what happens at the federal level.

“If we experience the kind of massive cuts that Trump is threatening to make, we will have even more difficult conversations to have,” Scott said at the May 6 town hall. “It is my job as the mayor and leader of the city to tell you that honestly.”

The City Council is expected to introduce the mayor’s budget on Monday. Residents will have another chance to express concerns at its annual Taxpayers’ Night event on Thursday at 5 p.m. at City Hall. 

Council members have until June 26 to adopt a budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins on July 1.

The post Harm reductionists press Mayor Scott about restitution funds, echo opioid board’s concerns at town hall event appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

This story was published in partnership with Mobtown Redux.

Roughly 1,500 harm reduction workers, addiction and mental health professionals, and others serving those with substance use disorder gathered in Baltimore on April 29 for the 2025 Tuerk Conference, a gathering meant to highlight the latest developments and brightest minds in addiction treatment.

Despite dozens of abstinence-based treatment programs having booths at the conference, it was harm reduction, a movement championing compassionate care for those actively using drugs, that emerged as key in talks about overdose prevention. 

Unlike traditional addiction treatment, harm reduction’s philosophy addresses the reality that active drug users have autonomy and the right to care regardless of whether they want to be abstinent. In response, those in the field work to ensure that those who use drugs and engage in other risky behaviors have the means to be as safe as possible.

In recent years, a growing consensus has formed at the epicenter of the nation’s overdose crisis that harm reduction, and not punitive drug policy or forced abstinence, will be crucial to save lives — even as President Donald Trump’s administration simultaneously celebrated “Fentanyl Awareness Day” to justify its drug war-inspired crackdown on fentanyl use.

Christina Dent, an author and speaker at the conference who founded a nonprofit advocating against drug criminalization, spoke of the “Iron Law of Prohibition,” which argues that prohibition and drug enforcement have created a more lethal, unregulated drug supply through arrests and seizures.

“When you criminalize a market, you increase crime and violence. You increase toxicity and contamination. People don’t know what they’re getting,” Dent said. “This approach has continued to grow over time, and what we are doing now has not produced the results that we wanted. In fact, it’s led to an explosion of harm.”

Harm reduction has only grown in popularity in the U.S. and internationally — on the same day as the conference in Baltimore, roughly 1,000 people attended the Harm Reduction International Conference in Bogotá, Colombia.

Advocates say that it’s key to incorporate these practices into drug policy, not in place of traditional addiction treatment, but in addition to it. What works for one person may not work for another, they said. 

The Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition, a local nonprofit that sent a representative to the conference in Colombia, has been a leading voice in advocating for harm reduction policies such as overdose prevention centers, or OPCs, and paraphernalia decriminalization in Baltimore. 

“It starts with compassion, and then it goes from there. It’s about meeting the person where they are,” said Cola Anderson, a community organizer at BHRC and the leader of the BRIDGES Coalition, a group of more than 40 organizations advocating for overdose prevention centers, which are considered the gold standard of harm reduction practices.

OPCs, also known as safe consumption sites, are scarce in the U.S., only operating in New York City and Providence, Rhode Island. However, they have been crucial programs in other areas of the world for years.

The facilities allow those who use drugs to bring substances into the facilities to use as they please. They are provided with sterile supplies and resources for services such as housing and addiction treatment. Medical professionals supervise the clients and, in case of overdoses, they can typically revive the individual by using naloxone or simply oxygen.

The BHRC set up a mock OPC under a tent in the convention center. In front of a mirror lay a syringe, a tourniquet and sanitary supplies. Dozens of those in attendance visited the tent, asking questions to local harm reduction workers.

Harm reduction is much more than just OPCs — the movement is responsible for the programs considered linchpins in overdose prevention efforts: naloxone distribution, syringe service programs, and the distribution of drug testing kits. Through such programs, workers can ensure that whether someone wants to be sober or simply continue their lives doing drugs, they remain alive to make the decision.

“[Harm reduction] saves people’s lives,” said August Page, a case manager at the SPARC Women’s Center, a nonprofit harm reduction organization that largely serves women and non-binary individuals. “We want to keep someone alive in order to make the choice for themself, for if they want to be abstinent or not. You’re talking about a choice — the autonomy of a person to choose their own way.”

The importance of harm reduction has been echoed by Baltimore officials, but they have found themselves in a conflicting position — the movement’s core tenets are in direct opposition to much of the city’s drug policies.

Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates did away with his predecessor’s de facto decriminalization policy, and the Baltimore Police Department continues to arrest those who use drugs at high rates — forcing people into a carceral cycle that upends their lives. These arrests disproportionately impact Black people and have been proven to increase overdose death rates.

In light of that reality, harm reduction advocates have pushed for OPCs and paraphernalia decriminalization in Maryland as a whole. However, Mayor Brandon Scott has refused to endorse city-sanctioned OPCs or decriminalization measures, only endorsing bills at the state level that have repeatedly died in committee over the years. This past General Assembly session was the first time these bills were listed as legislative priorities for Scott.

Sara Whaley, the city’s executive director of overdose response, said an important part of the fight against the overdose crisis will be policy advocacy, largely composed of legislative pushes for enhancements to addiction treatment and harm reduction initiatives. Both areas have been proven effective and are deemed crucial in addressing the crisis, yet they often serve different types of people.

“We can’t get in our own way,” Whaley said about the city’s policing of those who use drugs. “We have to work in alignment.”

Whaley is tasked with overseeing the city’s proposed holistic response as Baltimore receives hundreds of millions of dollars from opioid-related lawsuits to combat the crisis.

The city is slated to receive nearly $670 million — about $206 million of which has already been acquired — from five settlements and a jury verdict part of an ongoing lawsuit against McKesson and Cencora, formerly AmerisourceBergen. Most of the money is expected to be received by the end of this year.

In the second phase of that trial, the city is seeking $5.2 billion to abate the damages allegedly caused by the companies, with the lawsuit predicated on the assertion they fueled the overdose crisis by recklessly peddling opioids. 

Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Lawrence P. Fletcher-Hill has said he will rule on whether the companies must pay the city by May 6.

“In comparison to the profits that these companies received, I think this [money] pales in comparison, and it also pales in comparison to the cost of this crisis on the individuals who are impacted and their families in our community,” Whaley said.

Scott, who created the governance structure for the money through an executive order last year, was lauded at the conference for the city’s efforts to take pharmaceutical companies to court to fund overdose prevention efforts. Instead of joining statewide litigation, the city opted to pursue litigation independently to ensure it received as much money as possible. Initially considered a risky move, it paid off greatly.

Scott received two awards: the Chairman’s Leadership Award for the city’s progress on fighting the overdose crisis and a citation from Gov. Wes Moore recognizing efforts to reduce overdoses and expand equitable access to substance use care.

“We know there are no simple solutions to such a complex problem, but together we’ve worked to mitigate harm and ensure accountability for those responsible,” Scott said at the conference.

“From top to bottom, this is about building a Baltimore where people impacted by the overdose crisis are supported, safe, and thriving.”

Yet Scott’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year has raised concerns from those who want restitution funds to grow harm reduction and recovery initiatives rather than maintain the status quo.

The mayor’s proposed budget suggests using about $37 million from the new Opioid Restitution Fund to combat the overdose crisis. However, a large chunk of that money will replace money the city initially allocated from the general fund, a practice known as supplantation.

Last month, members of Scott’s administration and those on the new Opioid Restitution Advisory Board expressed concerns about using the restitution funds to replace existing spending rather than augmenting overdose prevention efforts with new initiatives. Those concerns resurfaced at the board’s meeting on April 30.

Numerous states have explicitly outlawed the practice, and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, which has published guiding principles for how states and cities should use restitution funds, has explicitly warned against the practice.

Public health experts, city officials and harm reduction advocates have made it clear the significance of the moment — and the need to use the funds to build more harm reduction initiatives — are not lost on them.

After a decade defined by a swelling overdose death toll, Baltimore saw a historic drop last year. The numbers have provided a new wave of optimism among officials, though they’ve emphasized the battle is far from over.

There were 774 overdose deaths in Baltimore last year, a 28.5% decrease from the year prior, which marks the largest single-year drop in at least a decade, according to data from the Maryland Department of Health. The last time the city saw fewer than 800 overdose deaths was in 2017, when 761 deaths were reported.

The lower death rate has seemingly continued into 2025, with 679 deaths in the 12-month period ending in March. While the decline is part of a national trend, public health experts have said harm reduction initiatives have undoubtedly played a role in driving down overdose deaths.

“Here we are in an upswing,” Dent said. “Instead of a harm explosion, we can focus on harm reduction… It helps people stay alive first. It helps them to stabilize their lives, which reduces harm to the people around them. It gives them connection points with health care. It helps them to stay connected and deepen bonds with their community, with their family. Ultimately, it helps support the process of rebuilding rather than destroying.”

The post As Baltimore battles overdose crisis and hosts East Coast’s largest addiction conference, harm reduction practices shine appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

In the past decade, Maryland state employee Chad Williams has been the subject of a federal investigation over his handling of sexual harassment complaints at a Nevada housing authority; has himself been accused of sexual harassment at two different workplaces; and was convicted of domestic violence while actively leading an agency in Baltimore.

Yet he still sits as executive director of the West North Avenue Development Authority (WNADA) as more allegations of workplace misconduct surface in Baltimore — a job he got despite numerous prior media reports about his alleged misconduct, sexual harassment allegations, and the Nevada housing authority ostensibly forcing him out of his position.

Members of the 20-person governing board overseeing WNADA have remained mum on the matter despite multiple requests for comment from Baltimore Beat. Those members include two state officials who sponsored the legislation to create the authority.

“What he has is … power, and what we’ve experienced is an extreme abuse of that power,” said Keyonna Penick, a former chief of staff and special assistant at WNADA who was with the organization for about 1 ½ years. “And if [he’s] left in that position, it will only get worse.”

Williams became the authority’s founding executive director in 2022, tasked with building the agency from the ground up, creating a redevelopment plan for the West North Avenue corridor, and overseeing millions of dollars in funding. 

In the roughly three years he has helmed the agency, public officials have lauded his work to redevelop an area that has experienced disinvestment for decades. In February, the Baltimore Sun named him a “Black Marylander to Watch,” highlighting his efforts coordinating state and city planning to benefit West Baltimore.

Before Baltimore knew his face, however, he faced a barrage of misconduct allegations at previous jobs.

In 2014, he was accused of sexual harassment “while serving as a board member for The Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington in Washington, D.C.,” according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “The accusation cost him his seat, but Williams has said that an investigation launched by the nonprofit coalition eventually discredited the claims,” the outlet reported. 

Williams filed a civil suit against the woman who made the accusation, claiming she “falsely accused him of sexual harassment after she abruptly left the Roundtable last July,” the Washington Business Journal reported in 2015. A D.C. Superior Court judge dismissed most counts in the civil suit.

“Williams also claims he was wrongly ousted from the board a few months later by now-former chairman Russell Snyder. And Williams alleged that Snyder, CEO of Volunteers of America-Chesapeake, illegally terminated his consulting contract with that organization,” the article states.

Six years later in Las Vegas, sexual harassment and age discrimination complaints against Williams, then executive director of the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority, led to more than $125,000 in settlements with two women, the Review-Journal reported.

The housing authority’s board was one vote shy of firing Williams in July 2019 after an independent investigation found he violated personnel policy by engaging in a personal relationship with a subordinate that could appear as a conflict of interest, but did not find evidence of sexual harassment. He was put on a six-month probation and required to attend ethics training, the Review-Journal reported.

Still, board members were cautious after it was determined that Williams lied about the extent and duration of his relationship with the employee. 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development also investigated the authority’s handling of sexual misconduct complaints against Theodore Tulle, the chief operating officer, under Williams’ tenure, the outlet reported. Williams told staff in an email he had known Tulle “personally and professionally” for 15 years before his hiring. In February 2021, six months before the Review-Journal reported the news of the federal investigation, Williams was put on administrative leave until his contract expired that June.

“One of the agency’s board members later said an investigator’s findings were critical of Executive Director Chad Williams, according to an email obtained by the Review-Journal,” the outlet reported.

The results of that investigation remain unknown.

Less than a year into his employment by the state of Maryland, court records show Williams was charged with misdemeanor and felony battery charges in Las Vegas after being arrested on New Year’s Day for “punching a sleeping woman, throwing her to the ground and kicking her in the ribs and face,” the Review-Journal reported. The woman was bruised and had dried blood on her face when police arrived after a 911 caller nearby reported hearing a woman crying and yelling “stop” inside the house, according to the article. The woman told police that Williams stopped her from calling 911.

The charges included misdemeanor battery constituting domestic violence and two felony charges: coercion constituting domestic violence and battery resulting in substantial bodily harm constituting domestic violence, according to court documents.

Court records show he pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge in March of this year, after initially pleading not guilty to all the charges. The other charges were later dropped. A court document signed by the judge on April 7 stated that she found him guilty of the misdemeanor, giving him a suspended sentence of 180 days in Clark County Detention Center and ordering him to fulfill 45 hours of community service and 26 weeks of domestic violence counseling.

The suspended sentence means he will not serve time in jail if he fulfills the requirements, which include probation.

Meanwhile, as he fought the Las Vegas court case over the last two years, several former WNADA employees in Baltimore — all women — allege he has harassed, stalked, and illegally retaliated against employees since at least 2023.

In the last month, these employees have accused Williams of targeting and humiliating women on the job, allegedly stalking one woman, and manipulating the grant process to favor certain entities. 

In an April 7 email sent to a long list of city and state officials, board members, former staff, and media, Penick, the former chief of staff and special assistant, detailed misconduct by Williams and called for his firing. The email has seemingly connected the women, who previously were not in regular contact with each other but found similarities in their treatment and were then emboldened to speak out.

Since then, Penick and three other former WNADA employees, all of whom are Black women with decades of experience in housing, government and related jobs, have told the Beat that Williams frequently engaged in inappropriate conduct on the job. In many cases, the women backed up each other’s stories and descriptions of Williams’ leadership. One woman filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and another woman is pursuing legal action.

Penick, who joined WNADA in 2023 and was fired last month because of alleged performance issues, sat in on multiple meetings with Williams and the women. 

She says that not only was she treated as incompetent — she vehemently denies being unable to do her job, as a state employee of almost 18 years, and instead blames Williams’ poor leadership — but she also witnessed weaponized terminations, abusive power dynamics and an increasingly hostile work culture. 

At a staff retreat in April 2024, Williams verbally berated an employee in front of other staff members, bringing her to tears, Penick said. She also alleged that Williams frequently talked down to employees, specifically women.

In addition, he allegedly made threats to employees, mentioning that Maryland was an “at-will” state and that he had the power to fire employees and change salaries.

In her April 7 email, Penick also warned of the steps the executive director would take to discredit her and the other women:

“Here’s how it will play out because it’s played out before:

• The Narrative Shift: I will be painted as unqualified, difficult, or insubordinate.
• Performative Moves: Sudden hiring or public gestures to ‘prove’ diversity and inclusion.
• The Silence Strategy: No one will openly discuss it, and leadership will move quickly to erase any mention of my work.
• The Next Target: Someone else will become the new scapegoat— the spotlight is on, but it’s only a matter of time.
• The Cycle Continues: The board remains complicit, and leadership remains unchecked.”

“I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge my own silence in the past. There were times when I saw the writing on the wall but convinced myself it wasn’t my fight. I needed my job. I justified my inaction, just as many of us do when survival takes precedence over principle. I won’t make that mistake again,” Penick wrote later in the email. 

Randi Williams, a contracted green space development and environmental health officer for WNADA, was the recipient of the director’s alleged verbal abuse at the April 2024 retreat. (She has no relation to Chad Williams.)

She worked for WNADA from August 2023 to June 2024. After she was fired, she filed a complaint with the EEOC last year and has also called for the director to resign, alleging she was “discriminated against because of my sex (female) and disability,” according to the complaint.

“The denial of my reasonable accommodation and the inconsistent treatment regarding PTO align with a broader pattern of disparate treatment of my time as a Female employee at WNADA,” the complaint reads. “I am preparing to present evidence and responses below, including patterns of decision-making and relevant personnel records, to demonstrate that as a Female employee I was subjected to less favorable terms and conditions of employment compared to Male employees within the company.”

The matter is currently under investigation. WNADA denied the allegations in its response to the EEOC complaint, according to documents obtained by the Beat. 

Randi Williams said Penick’s email helped validate her story and encouraged her to speak out. She not only alleged workplace harassment, but she also emphasized her concerns about the executive director appearing to have stalked her.

At the April 2024 staff retreat, Randi Williams inquired about H&H Realty Group, an eco-friendly housing company that received $750,000 in grant funding from WNADA, despite not meeting the scoring threshold used to determine whether entities are eligible for money.

Both Randi Williams and Penick separately told Baltimore Beat that Chad Williams called the question disingenuous and “out of line,” verbally attacking her for repeatedly bringing up the grant and potential issues with it. In tears, Randi Williams explained that she was never notified that she was ever acting inappropriately.

After the incident at the retreat, Randi Williams took approved time off for mental health reasons. Upon learning of this, the executive director allegedly called numerous people, including her friends, to learn where exactly she was staying during her time off. He also docked four days’ pay, totaling more than $1,000.

Later on, she said, she would see the executive director’s car in her neighborhood, even though he should not know where she lived.

“This is what happens when women get harassed and go unanswered,” Randi Williams said. “I fear for my life. And I can no longer walk around in fear because that man is out there existing, getting paid, and he’s gotten raises.”

Williams said she believed in the work that WNADA is tasked with. It’s what compelled her to join the organization and put her years of experience — which includes founding a company focusing on eco-friendly affordable housing — to work. As a PhD student at Morgan State University, where she studies architecture, urbanism and built environments, focusing on the environment and West Baltimore, WNADA felt like the perfect outlet for her to give back to the community.

Instead, the executive director ensured the spotlight was on him, she said.

“This is about West Baltimore,” Randi Williams said. “This ain’t about you.”

Shortly after the women shared their stories with the Beat, Randi Williams and Penick received a peace order filed by Chad Williams alleging they conspired to harm or kill him, based on the word of a man neither woman had heard of. Chad Williams did not appear at the April 16 hearing, so the case was dismissed. The women called the filing another one of his intimidation tactics.

In the peace order against Penick, Chad Williams claimed that a man “called petitioner to inform him that Randi Williams and another recent former employee (Keyonna Penick) are seeking to kill/harm petitioner.”

In the peace order against Randi Williams, it was alleged she “threatened to kill petitioner” in June 2024, after being terminated. It also claims she said she wanted to “shoot petitioner’s car up with the intent of killing him” in October of that year.

Finally, it alleges that both women were “seeking individuals to kill petitioner.”

After Chad Williams failed to attend the hearing, Randi Williams told the Beat she has filed her own peace order against him, saying she is “tired of living in fear and him abusing his power as a public official.” He has since been served with the peace order, a deputy confirmed to her.

In her April 7 email, Penick wrote about previous warnings board members and others received about Williams.

“Many of you recall the unsettling email we received on Wednesday, May 8, 2024, from a former colleague of the Executive Director (ED), warning us about the Executive Director’s behavior and past transgressions.” 

“‘I can’t understand how this clown does all this and still finds ways to be employed in the same environment … Go do your research on his tenure at the housing authority in Las Vegas.  He gave allllllll them girls raises that were not justified and fired a couple brothas, unwarranted terminations too,’” Penick quoted from the email.

Chad Williams did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the women’s allegations. Teresa Stephens, WNADA’s public affairs officer, initially indicated the authority, including Williams, planned to comment on the matter. Following the peace order, she declined to comment, calling it a personnel matter.

The Beat asked all of WNADA’s 20 governing board members whether they knew about the prior sexual misconduct allegations against Williams, the federal investigation in Nevada, and the battery charges. The Beat also asked whether those allegations, in addition to ongoing reports of misconduct and calls to resign, would lead to any disciplinary action.

Governor Wes Moore and Mayor Brandon Scott, who sit on the board, declined to comment. The remaining board members either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment. 

Those on the board who did not respond include Senator Antonio Hayes and Delegate Marlon Amprey, who sponsored state legislation that would benefit WNADA by allowing it to avoid regular procurement rules in 2023. The bill was signed into law by Moore.

Meanwhile, as they remain silent, the authority is overseeing tens of millions of dollars in funds. 

WNADA is a state agency created in 2021 by bills sponsored by Amprey and Hayes, both West Baltimore Democrats, to revitalize the West North Avenue corridor, which has seen decades of disinvestment. At a June 2023 funding announcement, Moore, Amprey, Hayes, and former City Council President Nick Mosby were exuberant about the work WNADA could do. 

“You aren’t just looking at housing, you aren’t just looking at transportation, you aren’t just looking at economic development, you are looking at all three at once, and that’s how we achieve a societal build-up. That’s how we transform communities,” Moore said. “By saying, ‘We don’t have to pick — we can do it all.’ That’s how we build communities.”

Hayes added that the agency would serve as a vehicle of “fundamental change” in West Baltimore.

“There’s a lot happening, and this is a good time for West Baltimore, whether it’s the redevelopment of TouchPoint over at Mondawmin by Tim Regan, the transformational change that we’re going to see in Druid Hill Park and a $15 million investment that we made over there, or the 40-something-million-dollar brand new business school that we’re doing right here at Coppin State University, the West North Avenue authority was an idea to bring all of that together under one vision,” Hayes said.

In a press release last month, WNADA boasted that it has invested $12.2 million in the area through numerous grants so far this year. In the past two years, it has invested $21.2 million to develop the corridor.

Despite these controversies playing out behind the scenes, the authority itself has been lauded as a crucial organization in West Baltimore. Legislation that the governor signed on April 22 establishes the authority as a permanent entity and sets a goal for it to be self-sustaining by 2028. Dozens of individuals testified in favor of the bill and in support of the organization’s work in hearings, including representatives from local nonprofits and universities.

“Having lived in the greater neighborhood and having worked for two Baltimore Mayors, I have seen West Baltimore neighborhoods suffer the impact of neglect. The Bolton Hill, Marble Hill and Madison Park neighborhoods have been divided historically and socially by the Eutaw Place Median (the ‘Red Line’ which ran from North Avenue to Dolphin). We view our work with the West North Avenue Development Authority as helping to bridge that divide,” Lee Tawney, president of the Bolton Hill Community Association, wrote.

Daniel Ellis, CEO of Neighborhood Housing Services of Baltimore, echoed the importance of WNADA in supporting the organization’s mission to remove barriers of access to homeownership. 

“We have had the privilege of working with the West North Avenue Development Authority (WNADA) over the past 3 years. It has been extremely helpful to have a unified plan for West North Avenue that considers all the previously developed plans and to also have coordinated funding needed to implement those plans,” Ellis wrote.

Anthony Jenkins, president of Coppin State University and a WNADA board member, wrote in his testimony that WNADA has made “major” investments in the West North Avenue corridor, commending Williams by name. 

“Under the leadership of Executive Director Chad Williams, funding support from Governor Wes Moore, and Senator Antonio Hayes’s vision, the West North Avenue Development Authority’s efforts are making a meaningful impact on the targeted communities between educational anchor institutions, Coppin State University (CSU) and the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA),” Jenkins wrote.

The praise is a stark contrast to the allegations made against Williams. 

Two other women who spoke to the Beat requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the subject. One of them said she feared for her life.

“Jane” was one of the first employees at WNADA, hired in 2022. She was working with Williams when he was arrested on the battery charges in January 2023. 

She felt uncomfortable working under Williams, knowing he was charged with battery against his girlfriend at the time, a concern shared by at least one other employee, she said. Williams called her from Las Vegas to tell her he was locked up after she hadn’t heard from him, she said.

At a staff orientation event in 2023, Williams addressed the allegations against him in Las Vegas, allegedly bragging that he had good lawyers who could get him off, she said.

Still, she had to pick up Williams’ slack, she said. After the incident, he was difficult to reach for months. Yet Williams downplayed her work and was repeatedly hostile and condescending toward her, eventually firing her for alleged performance issues in November 2023, Jane said. 

She denied any assertions she couldn’t do her job, telling the Beat she has more than 20 years of experience in her field.

Williams threatened to fire her on the spot rather than give her a final two weeks at the job if she went to the board about it, she said. If she spoke out, she feared that he would attempt to sabotage her unemployment benefits.

“I see so many things he got away with for that entire year,” Jane said. It didn’t help that to her knowledge, no one on the board or in the community fought for her. 

“I just thought that he was invincible. Nothing’s going to happen to him. I was out of a job after that for about six months.”

The other woman, “Doe,” who fears retaliation by Williams, said she is attempting to pursue legal action after being told an EEOC complaint was not an option. In a tense situation between herself and Williams that left her perplexed, she was forced to resign after being told they planned to fire her because of poor job performance, even though she argued she went “above and beyond” to ensure the organization got what it needed.

Doe joined WNADA in 2023, coming into the job with more than five years of experience in state and city government roles, where she received “excellent” performance reviews, she said.

While she was employed between 2023 and 2024, Doe alleged she witnessed Williams make inappropriate comments to a Hispanic woman on staff regarding her heritage, singling her out amid a group of employees.

On one occasion, Williams allegedly commented on Doe sitting with her legs crossed, claiming that the style in which she was sitting indicated she was promiscuous. The comment made her feel “disgusted,” she said. 

In a whistleblower complaint filed to the Maryland Department of Budget and Management and copied in a letter to WNADA by Doe’s lawyer, she also alleged that Williams manipulated the grant process to favor some entities. 

On November 30, 2023, Williams “explicitly indicated that certain applicants were pre-determined to receive funding. This statement was made in the presence of multiple staff members, including [Redacted]. [Redacted] perceived these remarks as unethical and indicative of predetermined outcomes which could potentially manipulate the grant process.”

On January 12, 2024, “Mr. Williams allegedly manipulated the scoring of applicants to favor certain entities, specifically emphasizing the inclusion of [Baltimore Arts Realty Corp]. [Redacted] reported this incident as a misuse of authority and a potential violation of procurement ethics. This manipulation was directly observed by [redacted] during a meeting where applicant scores were discussed and altered.”

Randi Williams, who was also at that meeting, told the Beat the executive director was “always saying shit like that to me.”

BARCO did not respond to requests for comment about whether the organization has a relationship with Chad Williams outside of his role as director of WNADA.

On February 1, 2024, Doe emailed Gov. Moore, “outlining her observations and concerns about potential unethical practices and pressures related to job security contingent on compliance with these practices.” 

“During a conversation with Randi Williams, Mr. Chad Williams stated, ‘If you want your job, then BARCO must be added.’ This statement, which I perceive as a threat to job security, is related to the scoring of applicants for funding to complete projects in West Baltimore. I believe this behavior contravenes state policy,” the email read. 

“I am making this statement in good faith and out of a sense of duty as an employee of the State of Maryland. I trust that this matter will be handled with the seriousness it deserves.”

Moore’s office did not respond, she said. 

Shortly after Doe raised concerns about the incidents, Williams filed a negative employee evaluation about her, and she was put on a performance improvement plan, she said. She appealed the disciplinary measures to no avail. 

The situation ended with Doe forced out of the agency, with her pleas seemingly ignored. The fact that she was forced to either resign or be fired was not just an abuse of power, she said. It was a decisive action that upended her life.

“I was stressed out. I was at that time facing my lease ending,” Doe said. “I didn’t have a job. It was my worst nightmare. I literally wound up homeless — I’ve never been homeless in my entire life. It was so bad, but I’m so glad [Penick] spoke out in this way.”

“Everyone turned a blind eye to this stuff,” Doe added. “What about accountability? What about the lives he ruined?” 

Penick’s email spoke to the women’s aspirations to revitalize West Baltimore — a mission that felt futile under Williams’ leadership, they alleged. 

For decades, the corridor has experienced debilitating disinvestment and neglect, leaving communities in dire need of resources. Jane said the employees were excited to bring change to the community and better the lives of its residents.

Yet Williams’ alleged intimidation tactics and ability to avoid consequences in the past created an environment where they feared retaliation if they spoke out publicly, even when board members and others failed to address their concerns.

“I know this may sound like the usual complaints from a former employee or something easy to dismiss. But I urge you to pay attention. If you turn a blind eye now, understand that the next time— and there will be a next time— it will fall at your feet,” Penick wrote in her April 7 email.

“It will be your complicity, and it will confirm every cynical belief the public holds about government: that you do not care, that accountability is just a talking point, and that the people you serve are an afterthought.”

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