Talbot Council Approves $172,000 for Homelessness Prevention and Winter Shelter and $164,118 for Senior Services Studies

EASTON, MARYLAND — Talbot County will pay Neighborhood Service Center $172,000 to keep up hotel stays for homeless residents and help families avoid eviction this winter, after the agency's funding for that work was cut in half.

The County Council approved the request 5-0 at its Nov. 10 meeting, according to the meeting video. Asked during the meeting, county staff confirmed that the money comes from the council's contingency fund.

Neighborhood Service Center is the county's designated Community Action Agency. In a Nov. 5 letter to the council, Executive Director Andy Hollis wrote that as of July 1 the agency's funding to help homeless residents dropped 50%, or $142,000 from the prior fiscal year. He wrote that last year the agency used $284,000 to provide more than 400 hotel stays and to prevent evictions. At the meeting, Hollis said the cut came from the federal government and flows through the state.

Hollis wrote that the request would also provide emergency housing during extreme winter weather. Talbot Interfaith Shelter and Grace Street Recovery provide temporary shelter during extreme weather for people not qualified to stay in a hotel, at a cost of $1,500 per 24-hour period, he wrote. He told the council that most people placed in hotels are found by law enforcement during freezing weather, and that the payment is a stopgap; he said the county needs a low-barrier shelter, which will not open this winter.

Later in the meeting, the council approved two no-bid contracts with MGT Management Consulting on a 5-0 roll call, after voting to reject the bid received for the first study. One, for $74,368, is a feasibility study of senior programming services, which the county manager's Nov. 2 memo describes as weighing what it would mean for the county to take over all the duties Upper Shore Aging now provides. The other, for $89,750, is an action plan on senior housing support requested through the council's Senior Citizens Task Force. Both are paid from contingency. The county's contingency report, certified Nov. 5, showed $2,962,468 available before the meeting.

The council also voted 5-0 to file a declaration of intent notifying the state that the county plans to apply for a private plan under Maryland's Time to Care Act, the paid family and medical leave law also known as FAMLI. Human Resources Director Donna Pardieu told the council that a statewide group of public employers the county joined in November 2023 is dissolving because insurance carriers declined to quote it a combined rate. Her presentation lists a Nov. 15 deadline for the declaration; the county will now seek its own quotes and pick a private carrier, and the state must still approve any private plan.

The Senior Citizens Task Force meets today, Thursday, Nov. 12, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at the Talbot County Health Department, 510 Cadmus Lane, Easton, with a Zoom option. Its agenda lists an update on the crisis housing and low-barrier shelter planning study and a report from its low-barrier shelter work group.