FIGHTING VIRUS ON THE STREETS
Crews are passing out wellness kits, but advocates say more help is needed
Officials are taking steps to protect people experiencing homelessness from the novel coronavirus.
Denver officials are taking steps to protect people experiencing homelessness from the novel coronavirus sweeping the globe, including handing out supplies and communicating with shelters.
Public health experts and advocates for the homeless agree the population is vulnerable and requires special care. City crews began hitting the streets last week, passing out wellness kits and other resources.
Those are good steps, but much more work is needed as the virus spreads throughout Colorado, said Cathy Alderman, a representative of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless.
“If it does start spreading in the community and people start picking it up in coffee shops, libraries and other public places, the spread could happen quickly among people experiencing homelessness,” said Alderman, the organization’s vice president of communications and public policy.
On the streets, there’s a wave of confusion and perhaps a lack of concern about the virus.
Sincere Beauvais, who said she has lived on the streets for two years, is confused about the virus. She assumed the worst until someone corrected her, she said.
“I thought zombies, but they told me influenza,” Beauvais said.
Frequent hand washing and social distancing are effective in combating the spread, but few on the streets have access to wash rooms and live in close contact with one another. What options do they have, Beauvais asked?
What’s more, those without permanent shelter are more likely to suffer from underlying or chronic illnesses, said Robert Belknap, an infectious disease doctor at Denver Health. They’re more vulnerable.
“How do we identify and quarantine a group of people who rely on shelters as a safe place to sleep?” Belknap said.
The health of people without homes affects the health of a city’s overall population, noted Sandy Johnson, a professor of global health affairs at the University of Denver.
“If somebody is infected and they don’t have a place to stay for 14 days that’s out of circulation with the public, then we’re not able to contain the disease,” Johnson said.
Such a failure would be the fault of Denver’s system rather than those living on the streets, Johnson said.
City officials should consider buying or leasing a building — perhaps an old motel — to house anybody experiencing homelessness who needs to be isolated, Alderman said.
Denver is exploring all quarantine options, said Tammy Vigil, of the city’s Joint Information Center.
“This includes looking at the city’s existing real estate inventory as well as other for-sale facilities,” Vigil said in an email.
In the meantime, crews are still contacting those on the streets and trying to connect them with shelters and services.
“We’re trying to get them indoors like we always do because that’s the safest place to be,” said Bob McDonald, Denver’s public health director.
But for those who don’t make it into a shelter, McDonald said, the city is providing wellness kits.
After searching for a group of people experiencing homelessness for more than an hour Thursday morning, Lisa Straight, Denver’s director of community and behavioral health, began passing out some of the 150 kits her crew packed for the day.
The handouts include hand sanitizer, maps of available sinks and bathrooms in Denver, and an informational pamphlet about the coronavirus, among other things.
The handouts began Wednesday around Civic Center, Straight said. Crews gave away 90 kits, working out of a repurposed Winnebago stocked with food, hygiene products and other necessities.
“Are you familiar with what’s happening?” Straight asked one man near Park Avenue and Champa Street. “Can I talk to you a little about the services we can connect you to?”
Angel Rayas said he has been homeless for years and accepted the wellness kit with a smile but debated its usefulness. It’s difficult to stay clean on the streets with so many strangers around.
Some have resorted to drinking the sanitizer for its alcohol content, Rayas said.
Straight said crews will continue to hand out the kits until the approximately 5,000 hand sanitizer packages the city has to offer run out.
More work is underway in the city’s shelters. Thursday afternoon, Denver officials said on Twitter that public health officials are conducting COVID-19-focused inspections and consultations at shelters.
City officials declined a request for more information about that tweet, but representatives of the Catholic Charities of Denver and Denver Rescue Mission shelters said they have been working in tandem with public health officials.
Employees at Denver Rescue Mission shelters are sanitizing high-touch surfaces such as door knobs, tables and railings hourly as of this week, rather than the normal three times per shift, said Rene Palacios, director of emergency shelter services. They’re also deep cleaning the shelters twice a day as usual, he said.
The shelter also added nine new sinks for handwashing, Palacios said.
Since there’s no clear plan yet for how someone in a facility might be quarantined or isolated, the goal is to prevent the virus from reaching Denver’s shelter population, said Orlando Padilla, Denver regional director for Catholic Charities.