The headquarters of one of Baltimore City's best-known and most-loved non-profits may have fallen into foreclosure – because of an overdue water bill.
The Bea Gaddy Family Center serves dinner to hundreds of people on Thanksgiving, and also helps feed many more all year round.
Gaddy passed away in 2001. Her daughter, Cynthia Brooks, now runs the non-profit out of a rowhome in East Baltimore.
But Brooks was in the hospital for an extended time this year, and apparently some things slipped through the cracks while she was away.
“I've been away,” she said. “I had surgery so I was out for three months or so.”
Brooks says her surgery meant other family members had to take care of business while she was gone. It appears, she says, that a water bill didn't get paid.
Brooks says based on a notice she got from the Baltimore City Sheriff's Office, she believes another person or business may have already purchased the building.
“I want to be able to speak to whoever this entity is,” she said.
Brooks and other staff members have been going back over their records -- trying to find out why the water bill didn't get paid.
She's hoping something can be done so that the non-profit will be able to keep going.
“I'd ask them to give me time, let me raise the money. Let me try to raise the money. But please whatever you do, don't take our building. Give it back to us,” she said.
A spokesman for the Baltimore City Department of Public Works -- which oversees water bills in the city -- confirmed that the building on Chester Street did go to a tax sale, over a bill that had risen to more than $1300.
But he said some of it has already been paid down; it's still not clear whether the building has been sold or continues to be on the tax sale list. Cynthia Brooks has set up a GoFundMe page to try to raise money to pay down the bill.
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