Virus site for homeless operating below capacity
In the two-and-a-half weeks since Clark County and Las Vegas started operating the homeless ISO-Q (isolation/quarantine) complex at Cashman Center, 112 people have been treated there.
The facility can house 500 people, but as of Friday morning, there were 64 patients. Five had been diagnosed with COVID-19, while 27 had been exposed to a diagnosed patient but
exhibited no symptoms. The rest were showing symptoms of the disease caused by the coronavirus. Each group was isolated in a separate wing of the complex.
Ten patients have tested positive at the facility since it opened on
April 13.
Because the complex has seen relatively few patients, some critics have questioned whether the approximately $8 million it cost was a wise investment.
But Lisa Morris Hibbler, the city’s chief community service officer, said the impact of the complex is hard to measure because staffers still don’t have enough testing kits to check those with no symptoms and find out if they are silent spreaders of the disease.
“Because of the inability to test, we don’t know how well we’ve done,” she said. “We will see additional patients as testing becomes available, and then we’ll know if the person is sick and doesn’t know it.”
The complex initially had about 30 antibody tests — capable of telling if an individual had the disease previously — and 100 or so COVID-19 tests, all of which have been used.
Requests for more test kits have been sent to the state, but no one can say when the complex might receive more and how many it could get.
Regardless, Morris Hibbler said the city has met its objective based on the screening process, “which is to care for those who are sick and to mitigate the process of community spread.”
The tented, air-conditioned complex, which was built in two weeks, sits near the intersection of Washington Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard. Officials have said it is believed to be the first such facility in the nation to cater specifically to the homeless. Each of the three sections has its own shower and bathroom to prevent the different populations from mingling.
Those who come to the complex are referred there by shelters or hospital emergency rooms and taken there by ambulance.
Boring but restful
One homeless man, Robert Godleski, spent six days in the yellow tent for those with symptoms but no known exposure. He was released Wednesday after testing negative for the coronavirus at Valley Hospital Medical Center.
The 73-year-old said the staff at Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada encouraged him to go to the complex because he had a runny nose and burning eyes.
“The people are real nice. Everything’s immaculate and sterilized. It’s just boring,” he said Thursday as he waited in line for lunch outside Catholic Charities on Foremaster Lane, where about 1,000 lined up and nobody stood 6 feet apart. “I didn’t mind it. I saved some money and got some rest.”
Godleski said he’s not afraid of the disease spreading through the Las Vegas homeless community, though he acknowledged that “maybe I should be.”
Study finds shelters unsafe
Christopher Herring, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley, said many homeless people are similarly nonchalant about a disease that seems tailored to decimate their communities.
“Folks are so worried about their mere survival, COVID-19 is actually not that scary to a lot of them,” said Herring, a member of a research team that published a report last month on public health and homelessness during the coronavirus pandemic.
The study found that housing patients in hotel rooms and other empty spaces is still imperative to mitigate the spread, and evidence shows that high-density settings like shelters are not safe — even if they follow social distancing guidelines.
The ISO-Q facility “would be a great model if we had testing,” he said. “We really only have these nonpharmaceutical interventions, like keeping people in their own spaces.”
To provide more housing for the medically fragile during the pandemic, Clark County is spending $414,000 per month on quarantine and isolation beds at Well Care Living, Crossroads of Southern Nevada, hotels and motels, spokesman Dan Kulin said.
Additionally, the county earmarked $114,785 to house homeless families during the pandemic and is providing another $66,300 a month to HELP of Southern Nevada for case management, as well as homeless outreach to identify and locate highrisk people on the streets.
At Catholic Charities, where the first COVID-19 case in a homeless individual was confirmed, the shelter is operating at half-capacity to increase social distancing and is tracking where people sleep to later identify who may have been exposed.
CEO Deacon Tom Roberts said testing is imperative, but the crisis “has exposed a sore in this population in a big way.”
“Once they start getting tested, I think there’s a high probability those numbers will go up,” he predicted. “They’re already physically vulnerable living on the streets, and they’ve been on top of each other from the beginning.”
Contact Briana Erickson at berickson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5244. Follow @Bybrianae on Twitter.