Bay Area rushes to house those with nowhere to go
Dozens of homeless move into hotels in crisis, but thousands more remain on streets
When people began dying of COVID-19 in the Bay Area, Christina Lopez was scared.
With her long list of chronic ailments, including pulmonary hypertension, heart failure and edema, she knew she was at great risk of developing severe or even fatal symptoms if infected. So she took seriously the warning from Bay Area officials and then the governor to shelter in place.
The problem is, her family is homeless.
“The only thing to do to stay safe is stay inside,” said Lopez, 39. “But we don’t really have an inside to stay.”
Thousands of others across the Bay Area are in the same position — either living on the street or staying in crowded shelters unable to practice social distancing.
Even though cities and counties have identified thousands of empty hotel rooms to shelter the homeless during the crisis and paid to reserve
hundreds, filling those rooms has proved a challenging, time-consuming process, as officials struggle to install staff, food service and other resources.
But as the pandemic grows, officials say they’re working around the clock to get people safely housed.
“Homeless individuals in general are in poorer health than the general population,” said Ky Le, director of Santa Clara County’s Office of Supportive Housing. “We’re basically trying to save as many lives, or prevent injury or death, as much as possible.”
As of Thursday, Santa Clara County had secured 172 rooms in hotels and motels around the county, 68 of which have been filled. That includes nine rooms of individuals or families who tested positive for or had been exposed to the coronavirus.
The county is paying about $100 a day per room and will ask the state to reimburse that expense.
Santa Clara County and the city of San Jose also are working on opening two new homeless shelters, moving people into new tiny homes and setting up 109 state-owned trailers.
Lopez is hoping to secure a hotel room for her family. She had been staying in a Sunnyvale homeless shelter with her husband and 6-year-old son, while her two other minor children stayed with relatives. But they left the shelter when the outbreak started because the cots were so close together that social distancing was impossible.
They’ve been paying for motel rooms, but Lopez had to leave her job at Safeway because of her compromised immune system, and their money is running out. Now, from night to night, Lopez isn’t sure where they’ll sleep. Living in their two cars is in the back of her mind as a last resort.
Alameda County leased two hotels near the Oakland Airport but had yet to move in any residents, David Modersbach of Alameda County Health Care for the Homeless said Wednesday during a conference call with the county’s homeless care providers. Officials were setting up one of them — a 100-unit hotel
— exclusively for homeless people who have been infected by or exposed to the coronavirus. Modersbach said he hopes to see new beds opened in the next few weeks for others who are at risk but not sick.
San Francisco has leased more than 300 hotel rooms for homeless residents, people in congregate housing and front-line workers who are sick and have nowhere to quarantine, and the city has 920 more in the pipeline, according to Mayor London Breed’s office. Twenty-one people had checked in as of Thursday afternoon, said Chandra Johnson, director of communications for the city’s Human Services Agency.
Concerned the city wasn’t doing enough for homeless residents who haven’t been infected, San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston took it upon himself to lease 20 rooms at the Oasis Inn in
Civic Center.
Preston filled those rooms with seniors and families who had been living in crowded San Francisco homeless shelters. He launched the program with $16,500 in donations — including $10,000 from his own pocket — and as of Friday had raised an additional $58,000 on GoFundMe. Preston hopes to use that money to lease more rooms.
Oasis owner Naresh Dhadhal said he jumped at the chance to participate. Spring is typically a busy time of year for him, with European tour groups filling his hotel. Now, his rooms are empty, and he’s not sure his business will survive. He leased rooms to Preston for $80 a night — half-price, but better than nothing.
So far, Dhadhal said, the newcomers have been model guests.
“They’re not mixing and mingling,” he said. “I hardly see anybody. They’re all just staying in their rooms, which is a good sign.”
HomeFirst, which operates shelters that sleep hundreds of homeless residents throughout Santa Clara County, has sent about 10 people to motels because they showed symptoms of what could be COVID-19.
“The last thing we want them to do is contaminate someone else,” said HomeFirst CEO Andrea Urton.
Daniel McClenon, a 36-year-old street artist, had been sleeping in a tent along San Jose’s Guadalupe River when a heroin relapse landed him in the hospital with infections in both arms. About two and a half weeks later, he was released to a respite program on Little Orchard Street — just as the coronavirus outbreak was picking up.
McClenon — who suffers from migralepsy, a condition in which migraine headaches trigger seizures — was worried. He had his own room at the shelter, but he ate meals in a communal dining hall shared by more than 100 residents.
“As soon as someone got sick there, it would have just been over,” he said.
Then, about a week and a half ago, McClenon and other respite patients were evacuated in hospital vans to a Motel 6 leased by the county.
Now that he has a safe space, McClenon’s fears about contracting the coronavirus have evaporated. He’s staying clean and plans to use the time in the motel for his art — right now he’s working on a series of drawings of Michelangelo’s Pietà sculpture, using coal from a barbecue and chalk on pieces of cardboard.
But one big drawback to the motel living has been the food. McClenon said that during the first few days, residents received meager servings of soup, which staff would make up for later by buying them pizza. Now they’re getting several prepackaged frozen meals at a time — but the motel freezer is only big enough for one, so the rest sit out and go bad, he said.
While it’s been fairly easy to find vacant rooms, officials admit that setting up food delivery and other services has been a challenge.
“In ramping up the food distribution and coordination, there were definitely some gaps,” Le said, “and we’ve been working closely with the city of San Jose and the providers to fill those gaps.”
For Lopez, who is navigating the pandemic without a home, the stress is taking a toll on her mental health, aggravating her depression and anxiety. With her compromised immune system, she’s convinced she wouldn’t survive if she caught COVID-19. And where would that leave her kids?
“That’s where it gets tough,” Lopez said. “And I don’t like to think about it, because it makes it me sad.”