County opens vaccination site for homeless residents
MARTINEZ >> Michael Cornelius felt a weight lifted when he got his COVID-19 shot Monday after months spent waiting for the state to prioritize unhoused people like him.
“I feel good,” he said following the injection, “especially mentally, knowing that if someone coughs, I don’t have to duck and run.”
After California expanded its vaccine guidelines, making all unhoused residents eligible, Bay Area counties are ramping up efforts to inoculate their homeless communities. Contra Costa County health workers on Monday set up a mobile vaccination clinic at the Martinez Marina, where Cornelius and about 25 other people live in tents and makeshift structures. It marked the first step in what is likely to be a lengthy process of reaching the county’s roughly 2,300 unhoused residents.
A steady trickle of people from the marina and surrounding encampments approached the county van parked in a gravel lot. They sat at two folding tables, got their one-dose Johnson & Johnson shots, and then moved to a waiting area to be monitored for adverse effects. The county expected to vaccinate about 30 people at the mobile clinic on the first day, said Linae Altman, a public health program specialist with the county’s Healthcare for the Homeless team. About half of the people offered shots accepted, she said.
That rate of vaccine hesitancy is common, Altman said, and to combat it, her team plans to visit each unhoused community more than once in an effort to build trust among residents.
Monday’s clinic was the county’s second for unhoused residents. After getting the go-ahead from the state, Contra Costa started its mass-inoculation effort Friday, Altman said. The county vaccinated 30 people at a Project Roomkey hotel that shelters homeless people in Concord, even though when the state’s official, written guidance came out, it said unhoused people wouldn’t be eligible until Monday.
Other Bay Area counties started early as well, citing confusing state guidelines and a need to quickly vaccinate vulnerable homeless populations. Santa Clara County began vaccinations at homeless shelters March 1, and officials planned to start in encampments this week.
Counties also have been vaccinating unhoused residents who qualified earlier because of their age or medical conditions. As of March 4 in Contra Costa County, 485 homeless patients had received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to health officials.
Bay Area experts have long been pushing for the state and counties to prioritize homeless communities. Living outside takes a toll on the body, and researchers have found people who do are more likely to suffer from medical maladies typically found in much older people. That, coupled with the fact that people can’t safely shelter indoors and may not have access to running water for handwashing, can put them at greater risk for COVID-19.
Unlike other Bay Area counties, Contra Costa has not reported any COVID outbreaks in its homeless shelters or encampments, Altman said, though there have been scattered cases
throughout those communities.
Frank Bozdeck, 53, overcame his fear of needles Monday to get his COVID shot.
“At first I was nervous,” he said. “But it had to be done, period, or I’m going to get sick.”
Bozdeck, who has lived at the marina encampment for about a year, ended up homeless after getting laid off from his landscaping job. Now that he’s been vaccinated, he feels more confident putting himself out there to look for work and get off the streets.
“After I got the shot,” he said, “now I’m ready to do this.”
Until Contra Costa County establishes a set schedule for its mobile vaccine clinics, homeless residents who want to get vaccinated can call Healthcare for the Homeless at 925-608-5300 for more information.