BALTIMORE — Maryland will no longer house foster youth in hotels, a much-criticized practice even before a 16-year-old foster girl was found dead a month ago in a Residence Inn in East Baltimore.

As of Monday, six youth remained in hotels, said Maryland Department of Human Services Secretary Rafael J. López. He has issued a directive to local social services agencies that they must place them elsewhere by Nov. 24.

“One young person in a hotel is one too many,” López told The Baltimore Sun. “We wanted to end the practice once and for all.”

The directive came in the wake of the suicide death of Kanaiyah Ward, 16, who was staying at the Residence Inn by Marriott on the Johns Hopkins medical campus on Wolfe Street under the care of a contracted “one-on-one” service provider. The medical examiner determined that the cause of death was diphenhydramine intoxication, saying an empty bottle of the antihistamine, often sold as Benadryl, and a suicide note were found on the premises. DHS continues to investigate the death.

It is not clear how long Kanaiyah had been staying at the hotel, but the girl, who previously lived with her family in Prince George’s County, had been enrolled at the Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts in West Baltimore since last September 2024, according to the city public schools system.

“Hotels, motels, office buildings and other licensed settings are not in a youth’s best interest and must be discontinued immediately,” López’s directive said. “Youth experiencing stays in unlicensed settings is inconsistent with state and federal law, and departmental standards and policies.

DHS said it has been increasing residential care services to accommodate youth who might previously have ended up in hotels and other places not licensed to provide foster care.

Child advocates say foster youth are still staying, for example, in social services offices and hospitals.

Mitchell Y. Mirviss, a Venable law firm partner who for decades has sued the state to reform its foster system, said he received reports that five Baltimore children were in hospital “overstays,” in which they remain despite being deemed ready for release,” on Friday, and one child spent Sunday night and Monday morning at a city social services office.”

López said children will be brought to offices on occasion, for just several or more hours, if, for example, they are removed from their homes in the middle of the night and cannot immediately be placed in a home or other facility.

Advocates questioned where caseworkers will find placements for youth who have been in hotels due to a lack of open spots.

“It’s not a solution, it’s a command,” said Judith Schagrin, a former administrator of Baltimore County’s foster system. “It doesn’t appear to be accompanied by, ‘Here are the resources.'”

“Where are they going? said Leslie Seid Margolis, managing attorney for Disability Rights Maryland. “The bottom line is: There aren’t enough community resources for them.

The directive, for example, doesn’t specifically name children who overstay in hospitals, Margolis said. She and other attorneys have a pending lawsuit against the state on behalf of such foster youth, who can linger for months in a hospital setting awaiting a placement.

Rather than hotels, the DHS directive calls for youth to be placed, in the order of preference, in kinship care, a licensed foster home, a contracted treatment foster home, congregate care such as a group home, an independent living program, or a trial home visit with a parent or guardian.

López said child welfare is “a very complex environment,” and social services agencies are continuing to work to provide “a higher level of care” across the state.

“If I had a wand, I would have used the magic wand from day one,” he said.

Maryland Delegate Mike Griffiths, a Republican who represents Harford and Cecil counties, said that he welcomes the directive as “obviously a positive step forward.”

But he also said he wants more details on where youth are being sent, and said that he still plans to introduce a bill, “Kanaiyah’s law,” to codify the ban on using hotels as well as other unlicensed settings. The bill would also address issues of licensing and background checks, Griffiths said.

The issue is personal for him, having been in foster care himself between the ages of 12 and 18.

“It brings back tough memories for me,” Griffiths said. “Watching this play out, these kids are still largely treated like second-class citizens.”

To help reduce reliance on hotels, DHS said it has contracted with residential child care providers to expand and develop services to address the complex needs that have made placements difficult.

In June 2025, DHS put out a solicitation for residential programs that can accommodate “children with complex medical and behavioral health needs” in “a structured, therapeutic, and supportive environment.”

Existing group homes, DHS said, don’t necessarily have the specialized staff or training for this level of care, leading to youth overstaying at hospitals or being placed in hotels.

DHS has said reducing hotel stays has been “a top priority.” There had been 41 youth staying in hotels in January 2023 when the current administration took office. As of last week, there were 3,748 youth in foster care in Maryland.

Officials have said that hotels have been used as a last resort for youth, usually older ones with behavioral or mental health issues that can make them more difficult to place. There may not be a foster family willing or able to take a youth with behavioral problems, or a treatment facility with an opening.

While intended as a stopgap measure, hotel stays could drag on for much longer.

According to a July report by a court-appointed monitor of the Baltimore foster care system, for example, “The last youth to be placed at a hotel in Baltimore City was moved to a group home on May 9, 2025, after living in a hotel since January 8, 2024, more than one year and 4 months.”

The monitor’s report, though, goes on to note that removing youth from hotels doesn’t always solve the problem for good: “Unfortunately, several of the youth who previously resided in hotels have been ejected (some more than once) from their post-hotel placements, are on runaway, or have spent nights” in an agency office.

The General Assembly created a workgroup that recently began meeting to study and make recommendations on how to solve the problem of foster youth staying in hotels and other unlicensed settings.

López said his directive is part of an ongoing set of efforts to better care for youth with complex needs.

“Can we continue to improve?” he said. “Without question.”

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