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 Johnson, one of an estimated 550,000 people to go homeless on any
given night in the United States, is worried crowds at the lunch
service could expose him to a virus that has no vaccine.
"This is the type of thing where you need to stay away from other
people," he said from the Bowery Mission dining room, where
volunteers have hung posters detailing ways to avoid catching or
spreading the virus. "That's hard to do."
As known cases of COVID-19 in the United States quickly multiply,
homeless people and their advocates are preparing for an outbreak in
a population more susceptible to illness and with no way to isolate
or recover at home.
Shelters and healthcare providers from Los Angeles to Boston are
attempting to erect quarantine zones and purchase protective gear to
stop the virus from spreading to the roughly 1% of Americans who are
homeless at some point in a given year.
But finding the space and the budget for even basic safeguards
recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -
washing hands regularly and waiting out a potential illness in
private - will be a complex undertaking when it comes to the
homeless, advocates and health experts say.
"In a shelter system that is already bursting at the seams, the
ability to isolate and quarantine people and families is going to be
very difficult and very expensive," said Aine Duggan, president of
homeless advocacy group Partnership for the Homeless in New York.
SPREADS QUICKLY IN SHELTERS
New York City, Boston and Washington, D.C. have the highest rates of
men, women and children in shelters, while West Coast cities have
the largest overall number of homeless people, according to a White
House report from last September.
About 65% of homeless people, many of them children, sleep in
shelters and roughly 35% live on the streets.
"As we've seen with tuberculosis, norovirus, and so many others,
infections spread really quickly through the shelter system," said
Dr. Jessie Gaeta, chief medical officer of Boston Health Care for
the Homeless Program (BHCHP).
Homeless people also suffer disproportionately from chronic health
disorders, including heart and lung disease as well as diabetes,
that make them uniquely vulnerable to respiratory viral infections
like COVID-19, Gaeta said.
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The homeless are more likely to contract illnesses in part because of weakened
immune systems due to additional stress, lacking nutrition and sleep. Unsanitary
living on the streets, where restrooms are limited, pose additional risks.
Los Angeles' Union Rescue Mission, which has beds for about 1,200 men, women and
children at its 24 shelters, has turned its gymnasium into a quarantine zone for
unsheltered people to go if they have a fever or other symptoms linked to
COVID-19.
"Somebody who gets this and is alone on the streets will really suffer," said
Union Rescue Mission Chief Executive Officer Andy Bales.
The shelter has also stepped up cleaning efforts to nine times a day and added
hot-water hand washing stations outside of its buildings.
San Francisco officials this week said the city would set up recreational
vehicles and other temporary housing to isolate homeless people with potential
exposure to the virus.
FEWER VOLUNTEERS
While there is no indication the virus has reached homeless shelters or
encampments, it has already started to curtail the number of volunteers at food
banks and shelters in Texas, New York and elsewhere.
Founded in 1879, the Bowery Mission on New York's Lower East Side provides food,
medical services and employment assistance to the working poor and homeless men
women and children.
Many volunteers for the Mission's meal services have canceled since the
shelter's corporate sponsors began telling employees to work from home and avoid
crowded areas, said James Winans, who heads the 370-bed shelter network, one of
the oldest in the nation.
Cecil Barrow, who dines at the Bowery, said the new virus is just another
hardship homeless people like him regularly endure.
"The homeless are treated like we already have a virus, and most people probably
wouldn't care if we do," said Barrow, 66.
(Reporting by Laila Kearney; Additional reporting by Shannon Stapleton and
Hilary Russ; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
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