HELPING THE HOMELESS
Albany County officials detail COVID-19 pandemic aid
ALBANY, N.Y. » The topic of how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the homeless population in Albany County, was a major focus of County Executive Dan McCoy’s Friday morning press conference.
Joining McCoy were Albany County Department of Social Services Commissioner Michelle McClave and the Homeless and Travelers Aid Society (HATAS) Executive Director Liz Hitt, to discuss programs and services available to the homeless population.
“Between mental health issues, addiction, the congregate settings of shelters and more, our homeless population has been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, and we need to provide them with a safety net while also stopping the spread of the virus” McCoy stated. “HATAS is reporting a 47% increase in the number of unsheltered homeless individuals over the last year.
“With 16.3 million Americans still unemployed, countless families still struggling to pay rent and put food on the table, and the next federal stimulus package still up-in-the air, we need to prevent that number from rising any further.”
McClave further detailed the efforts and protocols their shelters have been following during the pandemic.
“One thing to note is that the homeless tend to be very vulnerable to COVID,” McClave said. “That’s because there’s a good percentage of them that are older and also have preexisting conditions, diabetes, heart problems, as well as issues with substance abuse and
mental health and behavioral health issues.”
McClave also explained how they’ve attempted to keep the homeless population safe, including coordinating with hotels to quarantine 64 people awaiting COVID-19 test results.
“We have worked with our shelters to provide them with support information. We learned together with the shelters as this all started. We were in contact with them on an almost daily basis, particularly in the beginning to provide them with the information and the support they needed,” McClave explained. “They’ve worked really hard to implement a lot of the CDC guidelines designated for homeless shelters, and that includes having clients and staff wear masks, socially distancing among the clients and staff.
“Doing food service a little differently, not congregating in groups for meals, having box lunches. Sleeping head to toe as opposed to head to head, having beds six feet apart.”
Albany County provides seven year-round and two Code Blue shelters, which cumulatively offer more than 400 beds. McCoy also led an initiative to place portable toilets throughout downtown Albany as shelter usage grew in recent months. One of the vital programs provided by HATAS is their outreach van, which operates between 2 p.m. and 10 p.m., connecting homeless people who are not sheltered, to available services they can benefit from.
McCoy also broke down the latest data in the county, including 11 new confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 on Friday.
Encompassed within those new cases are one healthcare worker or those who live in congregate settings, five with close contacts to positive cases, one who had reported traveling out of state and four who did not have a clear source of transmission.
Albany County has seen 2,339 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 to date.
Additionally, the number of people under mandatory quarantine has ticked up to 559. The five- day average for new daily positives has increased slightly to 8.8. Currently, the county has 44 active cases. Thus far, 7,797 people have completed quarantine.
Of those who completed quarantine, 2,295 of them had tested positive and recovered, an increase of nine.
Three people remain hospitalized with one person in the Intensive Care Unit ( ICU). The hospitalization rate remains at 0.12%.