Why Should Delaware Care?
The Hope Center in New Castle County is Delaware’s largest resource for people living without housing. How it is managed affects the quality of services provided, and the amount of money that taxpayers spend to run the operation.
New Castle County’s flagship homeless shelter – the Hope Center – has been dealing with a mold problem.
It is one that was noted in a recent lawsuit the county filed against the shelter’s former operator, and one that was investigated last month by industrial hygienist, Joseph Cocciardi.
The investigation’s summary report – which was commissioned by the county and later obtained by Spotlight Delaware – stated that mold existed within the facility’s heating and cooling system, and was also found at “elevated levels” within an unoccupied portion of the building.
The report also stressed that the problem is not “immediately dangerous” to the hundreds of people who live and work at the facility.
In his report, Cocciardi recommended that the county clean all of the surfaces within the occupied areas of the building in part “to preclude a worsening of conditions.”
The nearly 200,000-square-foot Hope Center – previously a Sheraton hotel – is located amid the Christina River wetlands near New Castle. County officials call it one of the largest homeless shelters on the East Coast.
Last week, New Castle County attorney Wilson Davis shared Cocciardi’s report with council members in an email in which he also stated that county crews would conduct a “thorough cleaning of the building” over the subsequent two weeks.
Davis will update the county council during a Sept. 24 Executive Committee meeting, according to his email.
Attend the meeting
The Sept. 24 Executive Committee meeting will be held at 2 p.m. at the city/county building at 800 French St. in Wilmington. Virtual access will be available here.
In his email, Davis also alerted council members to a lawsuit that New Castle County filed days earlier against the Hope Center’s former operating company, Hersha Hospitality Management. The lawsuit claims that mold problems first arose at the Hope Center after four separate floods inundated various rooms and hallways within the building in recent years.
The county further claims that Hersha “ignored warning signs that the Hope Center was being damaged by water intrusion, high levels of moisture and mold.”
New Castle County filed the lawsuit on Sept. 9, one day before County Executive Matt Meyer won a primary election race to become the Democratic candidate for Delaware governor. The lawsuit was publicly docketed a day after the election.
During his campaign, Meyer repeatedly pointed to his administration’s creation of the Hope Center during the height of the COVID pandemic as a key accomplishment of his two terms as county executive.
Yet, over the past year, several problems have emerged at the facility designed to help the county’s most vulnerable residents.
Hersha’s termination
Last spring, a county audit showed that Hersha Hospitality had not properly reported all money that was flowing into the Hope Center. It also had failed to charge ChristianaCare and the state government for various services, leading to a shortfall of hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the audit.
Weeks after the release of the audit, New Castle County announced that it had terminated Hersha’s operating contract.
Hersha had held the Hope Center contract ever since late 2020 when Meyer’s administration transformed the former Sheraton hotel in New Castle into a homeless shelter.
It did so after purchasing the building in an auction for nearly $20 million from a company affiliated with Hersha.
Asked in April why the county had fired Hersha, a spokesman for Meyer’s administration declined to provide details, saying only that the company was right for the Hope Center when it partnered with the county in 2020, but “is not the right partner going forward.”
The spokesman, Brian Cunningham, at the time did not divulge any information about mold, internal flooding, or about what the county would later claim was Hersha’s “gross mismanagement” of the Hope Center.
Now, in its lawsuit, New Castle County says its officials learned an “unsettling reality” after taking over the Hope Center in April. They learned that Hersha had failed to identify “water intrusion and moisture issues” that could cost more than a million dollars to repair, according to the lawsuit.
In an email sent Tuesday, Cunningham said county officials did not know about the mold and water infiltration in April, instead asserting that they learned about the problems following a “building assessment completed in May.”
The county then sought bids to remove the mold. In response, contractors “raised concerns about the water infiltration,” Cunningham said.
“We then immediately engaged with the Industrial Hygienist and received the all clear that the building was OK. Hope Center has been very proactive about this,” Cunningham said.
Breach of contract?
When Hersha first took over the management at the Hope Center following its launch in 2020, county officials appeared satisfied with the company.
But, over time as the COVID pandemic receded and the hotel industry recovered, the Hope Center operations “became an afterthought for Hersha,” the county’s lawsuit claims.
By 2023, routine maintenance was not being done in a timely manner, according to the lawsuit.
Ultimately, Hersha’s alleged failures prompted county officials to send the company a series of letters in 2023 and 2024, claiming it was in breach of its contract.
One described how Hersha’s maintenance crews last December failed to shut off the water leading to a boiler that had leaked hundreds of gallons of water throughout the building, including into its first floor.
That same month, the Hope Center “again sustained hundreds of thousands of dollars in water damage” after a maintenance worker improperly installed a toilet in one of the facility’s rooms, according to the lawsuit.
In all, the lawsuit attributes internal the flooding issues to poor maintenance, and so it is not immediately clear if any such issues occurred as a result of water coming into the building from the outside.
In a statement about the lawsuit, Meyer said, “the County is taking legal steps to recover the funds necessary to repair the facility.”
Last year, Delaware’s Congressional delegation announced they had secured $750,000, in part, to pay to replace a portion of the roof at the Hope Center.
Then, in June, Delaware’s U.S. Sen. Tom Carper and U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester announced an additional $1.9 million in federal dollars for the facility.
They made the announcement during a celebratory event within the Hope Center’s main lobby.
