Salvation Army deals with major outbreak
Eighteen residents and three staff at York Boulevard men’s shelter have COVID-19
The Salvation Army men’s shelter in downtown Hamilton is grappling with a double-digit coronavirus outbreak.
Results from testing Wednesday revealed 18 residents and three staff members of the Booth Centre shelter on York Boulevard have COVID-19.
“The team at the Booth Centre is doing everything that they can. Right now, more than ever, we need the community support to rally around the team there,” Glenn van Gulik, spokesperson for the Salvation Army Ontario Division, said Friday.
At the direction of the city’s public health services, the 18 residents have been isolated in two large parts of the 82-bed men’s shelter — the chapel and a dormitory — to prevent the spread of the virus, van Gulik said.
Public health has lent its support onsite, and so far, none of the men appear to need to go to hospital, he said. The three staff members are self-isolating at home.
“They’ve got a great staff there that are resilient. They’re proven that for the last 11 months,” van Gulik said.
The sizeable cluster of cases is “alarming” after a relatively few flagged through weekly screening in shelters since the early days of the pandemic, said Dr. Tim O’Shea, medical director of the Hamilton Social Medicine Response Team.
“I think that we’ve been riding a wave of both hard work and luck in order to not have major outbreaks, but it’s kind of a bit of a game of chicken, where we’re racing against what is somewhat inevitable when you have people living in congregate settings.”
O’Shea said he and his team typically conduct between 150 and 200 of the voluntary “surveillance” swabs, which are meant for residents and staff members without symptoms, in a day.
It was “very unusual” for the testing to yield any positive cases, but then about a month ago, that changed with “sporadic” cases of two or three. “But this is the first time that we’ve had anything of this magnitude in one day,” he said.
O’Shea worries about the health of people without shelter, who have been shown to suffer more dire outcomes from COVID-19. But he also expresses concern about fewer options for people to get out of the cold.
Earlier this week, Mission Services on James Street North joined the Salvation Army and Good Shepherd in halting intakes due to coronavirus cases.
A temporary overflow shelter operated by Good Shepherd at the former Cathedral Boys’ school on Main Street East also stopped taking newcomers pending the status of clients Thursday evening.
The Cathedral site has since “safely resumed admissions” after consultation with public health, Edward John, the city’s director of housing services, said in an email Friday. “Additionally hotel spaces have and will continue to be expanded.”
The city opened the temporary Cathedral operation in the fall to fill the gap left by the closure of a similar surge space for homeless men during the pandemic at First Ontario Centre, across from the Booth Centre on York Boulevard.
In addition to booking hotel rooms, the city also directed upper-level government funding to shelter operators to create more physically distanced quarters to help prevent the spread of the virus.
The city has also reopened an isolation centre for people who are homeless at Bennetto Community Centre in the North End.
“In some situations COVID-positive individuals and/or close contacts may be referred to the isolation shelter, and in some situations, such as that at Salvation Army, individuals will isolate within the shelter with enhanced surveillance, personal protective equipment, cleaning, security, and individual clients supports to promote isolation,” John wrote.
As the cases mount, O’Shea hopes shelter staff, who aren’t “super high paid,” can soon be vaccinated to protect them as they do their important work amid a pandemic that coincides with an overdose crisis.
“I get the sense that the morale in the shelter system is very low and I think that is concerning.”
Van Gulik said shelter staff who carry a “heavy load” are “nothing but heroes.”
“They work every single day to try to make someone’s life better and support individuals who are struggling,” he said.