Serving the homeless becomes more difficult
WASHINGTON — As the coronavirus spreads, some organizations serving the homeless and people in need have begun to shut their doors or limit their services. Others have introduced protective measures.
The District of Columbia’s Central Union Mission on Wednesday began checking the body temperature of staff members and every person who enters the facility, which provides beds for 170 to 200 people a night, along with serving an additional 25 lunches or dinners. If they have a 100-degree fever plus one other symptom of the virus, or a 101-degree fever or higher, they are blocked from entering and directed to a medical facility.
The measure is necessary because in the dormitory-style men’s shelter, where people sleep in bunks 10 inches apart, “once it’s in the door it would blow up,” said Joseph Mettimano, the shelter’s president and chief executive.
The organization’s clients, whose average age is 50, are particularly vulnerable, he said. “The people we serve, many of them already have chronic health issues; many of them already have weakened immune systems.”
Its family ministry center across the street that serves 4,000 people a month will continue to provide food and clothes but is suspending its legal aid and education programs. Mettimano said he had been in touch with D.C.’s Department of Human Services about what to do if the virus gets into a shelter. “D.C. was trying to gear up centers where homeless people can go for treatment, quarantine, et cetera. We’re not doctors, we’re not a medical facility, so we don’t have the ability to diagnose or address” the disease.
Mettimano said he had been in meetings all week, trying to plan for different scenarios. “If your staff get it too, what do you do?” he said. “What’s the nuclear option?”
So Others Might Eat, which provides more than 1,000 meals a day to people in need, has begun serving cold breakfasts and lunches in bags rather than plates of hot food, to reduce face-to-face contact between staffers and clients, most of whom are homeless.
The measure is also necessary because volunteers have been canceling shifts. The organization’s medical clinics will stay open; its job training program will not, she said.
St. Matthew’s Cathedral said it would suspend its Monday hot buffet breakfasts at which 20 volunteers typically serve 60 people, most of them homeless.
Volunteers’ enthusiasm had not flagged, said the Rev. John Benson, but the restriction was necessary to protect them. “A lot of our volunteers are an older, vulnerable population, and also many of the homeless people.”