Gregory C. Warren
Health care executive worked to expand drug and alcohol treatment, services for all regardless of income
Gregory Charles Warren, who helped prisoners and disadvantaged people with drug and alcohol treatment, died of a cerebral hemorrhage Feb. 27 at the University of Maryland Medical Center. He was 58.
His brother, Michael Warren, said Mr. Warren collapsed during a virtual meeting Feb. 24 with his business partners at his home in Riderwood and never regained consciousness.
Born in Indianapolis, he was the son of Charles Warren, an economic development agency official, and his wife, Kathleen Plopper, who worked for environmental agencies.
He was raised in Kensington in Montgomery County and was a 1981 graduate of Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda. He earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park, a master’s degree in counseling psychology at Bowie State University and a second master’s degree at what is now Loyola University Maryland.
Mr. Warren played college tennis and ran track in high school.
His brother said Mr. Warren helped build coalitions, open treatment centers, and provide access and services to all who needed them, regardless of income. The work took him inside jails and homeless centers, as well as corporate boardrooms, city halls and state legislatures.
Most recently, he was working to expand treatment in southwest West Virginia. He and his business associates recently purchased an old hotel in the town of Comfort in Boone County to provide residential treatment for addicts.
His business was the Lotus Health Care Group.
Mr. Warren also expanded access to health care in the Maryland prison system and across the city of Baltimore, and directed programs through Health Care for the Homeless, Gaudenzia Inc., Glass Health Systems and Lotus Recovery Centers.
“I was one of his admirers,” said Robert C. Embry Jr., Abell Foundation president. “I thought highly of Greg. He was competent, motivated and an intelligent gentleman.”
According to a family biography, from 2008 to 2013, Mr. Warren was president and CEO of Baltimore Substance Abuse Systems Inc., the agency that coordinated the city’s drug treatment strategy. He worked in more than 60 treatment programs that served more than 12,000 people each year.
“Greg has had a positive impact on literally tens of thousands of people with opioid use disorder in Maryland. I can think of no one in the past three decades who has worked so well across the entire spectrum of the substance abuse treatment system,” said Dr. Robert P. Schwartz, medical director of the Friends Research Institute on Park Avenue.
“In that work, he directly touched people’s lives, helped motivate them to succeed, and accompanied them on their journey to recovery. Greg was not one to be complacent. He advanced to direct a major drug treatment program in Baltimore City, where he oversaw its more than doubling of the number of patients.”
His colleagues said he helped those with opioid use disorder.
“Through Greg’s leadership at BSAS, we led the way in putting a system of care in place, the Baltimore Buprenorphine Initiative, using medication-assisted treatment that transformed how patients with opioid use disorder were treated and saved countless lives,” said Marla Oros, president of The Mosaic Group.
“We also introduced the evidence-based Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment or SBIRT intervention in health centers, schools and hospital emergency departments, an effort that has now been scaled across the state of Maryland, resulting in the early identification and treatment for thousands of individuals with highrisk substance use,” she said.
His brother said Mr. Warren pioneered a program to administer lifesaving therapies, including methadone, to newly incarcerated addicts who could otherwise suffer deadly withdrawal symptoms. This opioid crisis stabilization system helped reduce the short-term criminal recidivism rate for addicts leaving prison from 68% to 5%, his brother said.
“Greg could not have wrested more out of life — traveling all over to cheer his daughters, dashing around Europe, climbing Mount Washington, rappelling down a skyscraper, kayaking on the ocean,” said his brother, an Atlanta resident. “He and Sallie [his wife] even lived through the eye of a hurricane recently, and were hilarious when they told that story.”
Mr. Warren was an organ donor. In addition to his wife of 32 years, Sara Benninghoff “Sallie” Warren, a Maryland Institute College of Art executive, and his brother, survivors include another brother, Stephen Warren of Iowa City, Iowa; two daughters, Blair Warren and Landon Warren, both of Boston; his father, Charles Warren; and his stepmother, Elaine Tsubota of Timonium.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, a private burial was held Friday at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Owings Mills. A memorial service will be scheduled in the future.
Maryland’s broken unemployment system has caused tremendous damage to workers in the state. In our union, UNITE HERE Local 25, 90% have still not returned to work. As hotel and hospitality workers, they were disproportionately affected by the pandemic. For too many, the unemployment insurance system became a logistical nightmare rather than the lifeline they needed.
Many of our members are in dire, frightening financial circumstances because of the economic fallout from COVID-19. Most of them continue to rely on government services like unemployment insurance so they can meet basic human needs for themselves and their families. UNITE HERE members, like so many Maryland workers, have paid into the unemployment system for years with the expectation that the state would come through for them when they needed it most.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, nearly one year ago, Maryland’s unemployment insurance system has received more than 900,000 claims. While the vast majority of the claims have been processed, more than 40,000 are still being adjudicated, leaving too many Marylanders in financial limbo. A Stateline analysis shows that as of Nov. 1, Maryland had the third slowest rate of processing claims in the country, trailed only by South Dakota and Kentucky.
That is why we’re supporting the package of reforms before the Maryland General
Assembly sponsored by Senate President Bill Ferguson, House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones and Democratic leaders to immediately fix the broken unemployment insurance system. This legislative package will make certain that Maryland workers experience better customer service and faster response times, and it will make essential fixes to ensure that a failure on this scale never occurs again.
Here are just a few of the experiences our members have had trying to access their unemployment benefits. One member who works in Maryland was laid off in March but didn’t receive his unemployment payment until October. When his unemployment checks for the preceding six months finally came through, he was short the $600 weekly federal supplement he was owed.
Another Maryland member also laid off in March still has not received a single check. Numerous members have reported racking up crippling amounts of debt, being unable to pay rent and utility bills, and even running short on food due to lack of funds caused by delayed unemployment insurance payments.
That’s why these fixes to the unemployment insurance system are so needed. The legislation sets timelines and guidelines for the Maryland Department of Labor to complete claims, requiring that 92% of claims be settled within 21 days. It further creates a standard for claims that need adjudication, setting an 8-week deadline to settle 97% of those claims and giving filers a single point of contact within the department. And the proposal creates an easier process for applicants to track their claims and mandates appropriate staffing at the Department of Labor to meet demand.
Other pieces of the legislation respond to worker’s needs now by allowing them to receive their benefits as paper checks or through direct deposit or a debit card. It provides for adequate language access, including materials in other languages and rewriting materials in readily understandable language. With the overwhelming majority of our members speaking English as a second language, if at all, this is essential. This legislation substantially increases the amount Marylanders can earn while still receiving unemployment benefits, a necessary change for the new gig economy. And it would make it easier for people who lose their jobs — and often their benefits — to begin the process of signing up for health insurance through the state’s insurance exchange
This is an extraordinary time, a stress test for our health care system, local economy and government. Unfortunately, Maryland has failed on one of the most important supports that workers have. Let’s enact these bills to modernize Maryland’s unemployment system and make sure the state is getting necessary aid to workers and their families quickly and efficiently.