Vaccines coming to homeless shelters, jails
Ending an agonizing wait, several Bay Area counties plan to bring COVID vaccines to homeless shelters and encampments starting Monday — welcome news in a region that’s been struggling to keep its massive population of unhoused residents safe from the virus.
On Thursday, the state announced people who live or work in homeless shelters, behavioral health facilities and jails, as well as people living in homeless encampments, are eligible to receive the vaccine next week. Public transit and airport workers, as well as people age 16 to 64 with certain medical conditions, also will be eligible.
San Mateo County starting Monday will begin providing vaccines at homeless shelters, and will send mobile clinics and outreach teams to encampments throughout the county, according to Dr. Anand Chabra, COVID-19 vaccination branch chief. And the county will expand vaccination efforts in jails to include all inmates.
San Francisco already has been deploying mobile vaccination clinics to test strategies for reaching unhoused residents, so the city would be ready when the state gave the green light.
“This is a great step in protecting members of our community who are at higher risk of contracting or dying from COVID-19,” Dr. Grant Colfax, Director of Health, said in a news release. “Many of those with underlying health conditions and disabilities or who are in congregate living settings have had to endure greater isolation this past year for fear of becoming gravely ill from COVID- 19 and vaccinating this population is a critical step in protecting our city.”
Santa Clara County already started vaccinating at homeless shelters March 1, two weeks ahead of the state’s official goahead. The county informed the state of its intention to begin vaccinating those groups, received no response, and after 10 days, went ahead with its plans, according to the county Emergency Operations Center.
As of March 11, the county had administered 621 doses to homeless shelter residents and staff. The county began outreach at large encampments this week, and expects to begin vaccinating at camps starting Monday.
“We probably pushed the eligibility realm a little bit,” County Executive Jeff Smith said Friday, “but we knew those individuals in jails and homeless shelters were at extremely high risk.”
The state previously had allowed vaccinations for residents of “high-risk congregate residential facilities” including nursing homes and assisted living facilities, and Santa Clara County officials figured jails and homeless shelters fell under that category, Smith said.
But it’s hard to tell who is eligible to be vaccinated when, as the guidelines keep changing, Smith said.
“It’s been very inconsistent from the state and problematic,” he said.
No one from the state has reached out to Santa Clara County with a reprimand for jumping the gun, Smith said.
Meanwhile, plans are underway to vaccinate all jail inmates, “depending on available inventory,” according to the county.
Contra Costa County also is ahead of the state. The county began vaccinating jail staff and inmates in response to an outbreak in December, and will continue to do so, according to a county spokesman.
On Monday morning, the county will kick off its effort to vaccinate homeless residents with a vaccine clinic in Martinez.
In Alameda County, mobile vaccine clinics are planned for homeless shelters and transitional housing, the Vaccine Community Advisory Board told county supervisors at a briefing this week. But the county is still figuring out how to provide vaccines to people in encampments. All residents of Project Roomkey — the hotel program sheltering unhoused residents during the pandemic — already have been offered a vaccine.
After multiple COVID outbreaks at Bay Area jails and homeless shelters, many experts felt those populations should have been targeted for vaccines sooner. Major outbreaks have rocked both San Francisco and Santa Clara County’s largest homeless shelters.
“I always thought it was kind of bizarre that homeless shelters were held so late,” said Sparky Harlan, CEO of the Bill Wilson Center.
The center shelters about 800 children, young people and families each night in scattered sites around Santa Clara County. Harlan was able to get some of her staff members vaccinated because the center offers behavioral health services, and her staffers qualified as medical workers. But no one has reached out to her about vaccinating her residents.
Harlan is anxious for the vaccine to reach her clients, but she’s also realistic that she may need to be patient, as the county and the state continue to struggle with vaccine shortages.
“We’re not holding our breaths,” she said.