Sunday, March 08, 2009

Gouging Grassroots

When I read this article by Larry Carson in The Sun yesterday I wondered what kind of a house Grassroots had rented for $10,000 a month. According to the story, Grassroots rented the home, known as Building 21 on the Sheppard Pratt campus on College Avenue, from Historic Ellicott City Properties to house the county homeless. This is a picture of Building 21.
Doesn’t seem like much of a place for 10 grand a month to me. To put that number into perspective consider that you could rent this home in Ellicott City for $2,690 a month. That seems like a better deal.

Historic Ellicott City Properties is owned by Dr. Bruce Taylor. In what could possibly be the biggest public relations blunder of the year in Howard County, not only did Dr. Taylor get a premium rent from the non profit, he is also stiffing Grassroots for half of the security deposit.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would not be so quick to deride Taylor for getting $10K a month in rent for that place. I agree it sounds high as heck, but Grassroots voluntarily agreed to pay it. There must be a reason that they paid $10K for “building 21” rather than $2.6K for the seemingly nicer place in the picture below. Maybe it’s hard to find a house large enough to house homeless people in a neighborhood that does not have an HOA that would prevent that kind of use.

Whether or not he is stiffing them on half the security deposit is another issue, but the rent they were paying has no bearing on the security deposit issue.

Anonymous said...

Who runs Grassroots and is there a connection to this house?

Anonymous said...

Anon 10:13 here,

Since the building is on the Sheppard Pratt campus, wondering if security and medical services are provided.

Anonymous said...

The SDAT has no business or LLC named Historic Ellictt City Properties.

There is a business Ellicott City Properties on main street. Is that the same business?