‘I feel like those folks got forgotten’
Outreach worker says homeless people in tent cities during the pandemic feel left out, meanwhile overnight shelters see 76 users on average in May
Jenn Boyd worries about the homeless people she works with each day.
“This is a population who has been surviving on the margins,” the outreach worker for the AIDS Committee of Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo and Area said.
“This (pandemic) is just another layer for them.”
As the harm reduction co-ordinator for the AIDS committee, Boyd used to run the agency’s needle exchange program. It served 3,000 people each year.
Now with pandemic rules in place, Boyd said it has been difficult to check in with people she used to see on a regular basis, so she been doing outreach work in her car.
She spent the early days of the pandemic driving around with backpacks full of food, hand sanitizer, hygiene products and harm reduction supplies and takes them to various tent cities in Cambridge.
“I feel like those folks got forgotten,” Boyd said.
When the pandemic began, local social service organizations worried about what would happen to shelters, programs and resources that the homeless and at risk communities relied on so heavily.
The Charles Street Men’s Shelter moved to the Radisson Hotel in Kitchener to provide proper physical distancing for people.
The Region of Waterloo set up an emergency men’s shelter at the A.R. Kaufman YMCA with 60 beds. It was at or near capacity through the month of April and into early May, said Chris McEvoy, manager of housing policy and homelessness prevention.
The shelter is operated by the YWCA and since early May, it is also a daytime drop in, with showers, computer access and movie afternoons. There is also a daytime drop-in at 150 Main St. in Cambridge.
“We are really trying to create a place they can shelter in place,” McEvoy said.
Hotel rooms are also being used for overflow and to isolate any individuals showing symptoms that could be related to COVID-19. On average, 76 people used a shelter bed in hotels and shelters across the region last month, McEvoy said.
Only one person using a shelter tested positive for the disease in early April, McEvoy said.
The shelter system had 70 people go into isolation so far during the pandemic because they exhibited symptoms, but they all tested negative.
“We have been very fortunate,” he added.
For those who are hard to reach, Sanguen Health Centre in Waterloo has a health van that is testing for COVID-19 and providing medical care.
Not every homeless person in the region uses a shelter. Boyd said there are some who prefer to camp in the woods and other secluded areas of the region.
“We need to be out there to make sure they know what is happening,” she said.
When the pandemic first began, these people had nowhere to go to take a shower, or to use a washroom because public facilities were closed. When Boyd and outreach volunteers went into tent cities with supplies, they were greeted with gratitude but also frustration.
“They feel like they have been left out of the conversation again.”
Some of them are HIV positive, some are drug users, many of them have underlying health conditions due to their living situation. This is a group of people who are already immunocompromised, Boyd said.
She said the drug supply on the streets is unpredictable, and often dangerous. Between the drug crisis and persistent homelessness, many of these people are now dealing with a third epidemic, she added.
Boyd said she is afraid of what will happen to this community once the pandemic is over and the emergency resources have stopped.
“People will end up back on the streets, and to me that is unacceptable,” she said.
Permanent and stable housing is the only way to end homelessness, she said.
“Folks that become housed can do a lot with that stability.”
McEvoy said the Region of Waterloo is a “housing first” community and will always be pushing toward that goal.