For close to a year, the Mayor’s Office of Homeless Services (MOHS) paid twice for meals provided to homeless clients living in a city-subsidized hotel, Baltimore’s Office of Inspector General reported yesterday.

Both the shelter vendor and the hotel owner were reimbursed for the same food services at the Holiday Inn Express, located next to the Horseshoe Casino on Russell Street.

The shelter vendor’s invoices of $643,220 were legitimate, but the hotel owner’s billing of $460,920 were for meals that were never provided, according to Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming.

“The shelter vendor submitted supporting documents for the meal costs, while the hotel owner did not,” Cumming wrote.

Her abridged public report does not identify the hotel or name the hotel owner.

The Brew determined the owner to be The Wankawala Organization, which owns and manages the Holiday Inn on Russell Street.

A call to the company’s headquarters in Marlton, N.J., was not returned.

Phantom Meals

Since the start of the Covid pandemic in 2020, MOHS allowed Wankawala to bill the city for three box meals (at $6 per meal) a day for residents who lived in the 123 rooms rented out as a homeless shelter.

In August 2022, the shelter’s vendor, hired on another contract with MOHS, tapped a subcontractor to provide meals without notifying Wankawala, according to the company.

Wankawala continued to bill the city for meals allowed under its contract – but no longer actually provided – while the shelter vendor invoiced the city for meals that were actually delivered.

Such duplicate billing ended in July 2023 when the meal services subcontractor began sending invoices directly to the hotel owner and demanded to be paid.

Eventually, the subcontractor, Taste of Home, went to Cumming’s office to complain of nonpayments and publicly aired its grievances in a report aired in January on WBAL-TV.

Blame Game

After bank records subpoenaed by Cumming showed that Wankawala hadn’t paid Taste of Home for meals it was billing the city, the company placed the blame on the city, saying MOHS owed it $2 million for sheltering the homeless.

In January 2023, the homeless agency paid Wankawala about $1.9 million, including $460,920 for the phantom meals.

Cumming said city lawyers are now reviewing the contract, and MOHS says it is trying to claw back some of the funds expended.

“Constant turnover at MOHS led to unclear communication and heavy workloads”  – IG Isabel Mercedes Cumming.

The double-billing took place during Irene Agustin’s brief tenure as MOHS director.

Agustin resigned under pressure last September after it came to light that $10 million in homeless reimbursements from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development were forfeited because of clerical errors and other administrative missteps.

Ernestina Simmons was appointed the new director and has been credited with improving the agency’s fiscal controls.

Last week, HUD reinstated $6 million of forfeited homeless and special needs assistance funds to the city.

“We are committed”

In an official response to Cumming’s report, Simmons blamed unnamed ex-employees for the double-billing and vowed to do better.

“This contract was approved by a former employee who included food as an eligible line item, which resulted in both the program coordinator and fiscal accountant approving the monthly invoices. The [Wankawala] contract should not have included food services.”

Adding to the confusion, the hotel and vendor contracts were processed by separate “teams” that didn’t properly collaborate with each other.

According to Cumming, “Several employees reported constant turnover at MOHS, often leading to unclear communication and heavy workloads.”

Simmons said the agency has an outstanding balance of $100,000 with the hotel owner and will not remit additional payments until the meal account is reconciled.

She added, “We are committed to improving our systems and process and are focused on ensuring efficient and effective practices that includes collaboration amongst our teams who are responsible for monitoring our sub-recipient providers and contracted vendors and processing monthly invoices.”