Homelessness During COVID-19

Shelter-in-place, for many of us “place” means a house or home. However, not everyone in the United States has a home to shelter in which conforms to many state governors’ stay-at-home orders.

Instead, there is a large portion of American Society who remain homeless and transient, leading to a greater risk of contracting the COVID-10 Coronavirus.

Within the following several weeks, many persons experiencing homelessness have been at increased risk of contracting COVID-19 and within the past several days many have in major cities.

Initially, persons experiencing homelessness were told to go to shelters, rent hotel rooms, and find other means of temporary housing to find assistance.

While these forms of housing would allow these persons to practice social distancing, retain consistent hand washing practices, and other preventive hygienic practices; these housing situations are not practical.

Many homeless individuals during non-pandemic times find it hard to obtain entrance into shelters as many shelters offer services to only certain groups, or are often full. Hotels and other rented or paid housing can be financially burdensome.

Further, these forms of housing still put many persons at risk of the virus. Persons experiencing homelessness, hotel staff, and shelter workers, as well as anyone whom they come into contact with, are at risk of contracting and being a carrier for the virus.

In many of these places, these full shelters, become a place where the virus can easily and quickly spread to large groups of people.

In fact, over the past week, Orange County and San Francisco shelters have had workers or guests test positive for the COVID-19 Corona Virus.

Besides lacking beneficial environmental features, people with less political and economic power are susceptible to experiencing negative health effects due to the lack of protections from larger systems of power, as seen by larger corporations and coal ash.

Coal ash is a mixture of sludge with high concentrations of many heavy metals that are known to be toxic carcinogens.

These particles can easily enter deep into people's lungs due to their small size and can cause numerous health problems, as described by an article from Nat Geo in their discussion of how larger corporation’s incompetence in protecting its workers has caused the appearance of many diseases.

Another prominent source of health and social inequity concerns lead, another metal that is hazardous to humans as it impairs cognitive development, leading to behavioral issues among children.

Lead pollution and poisoning are more commonly found in urban areas where a greater portion of low-income communities reside, as demonstrated by recent findings in Santa Ana.

Providing residents that platform to voice their concerns and needs against systemic or institutional powers will hopefully help change these situations for the better.

There are also some individuals who do not know their options for housing and services or prefer to not use these services for a variety of reasons. These individuals may choose to continue to live in tent clusters or tent cities or find other areas to inhabit.

However, different cities that have limits on group gatherings, like Los Angeles, have since required homeless individuals to take down their tents as a means to push these individuals to find alternative shelters.

This leads to increased health risks as individuals who cannot find shelter are forced to face the elements of nature or other persons that could enact harm against the homeless individual.

While the government has stepped in to minimize risk and find housing for these individuals, it is a slow process and still comes with issues.

The government has opened temporary housing units for the homeless population, given financial incentives and housing assistance to obtain hotel rooms, and found other closed businesses to turn into make-shift temporary housing.

However, while these new housing systems give a promise, these changes do not occur overnight and do hold some controversy as many individuals still deal with negative biases against homeless groups. One of the largest biases, which can be seen even in Orange County, is a relation between homelessness and criminality.

While this stereotype is largely untrue, Orange County, to help assist in providing housing, will be opening up a former juvenile correctional facility to hold individuals. While the public health incentive is good, homeless individuals have already expressed distrust and issues with this plan as it asserts a criminal relationship to their homeless experience.

There is no perfect method to help ensure the homeless community in our world is safe from the risk of COVID-19. However, it begs the question of how did we get here, and were there preventive measures that could have been taken?

I would personally assert that there were opportunities to give affordable housing and assistance prior to the outbreak, and many of these opportunities may not have been given a fair chance due to public and governmental biases against homeless populations. In fact, there are several provided below.

However, what do you think?

NRDC Wired FOX - SF KXAN USICH CDC SF.GOV VOX URM Coalition LA Times

What do you think?

Every week, we will invite you all, our general members, to engage with these topics that each board member offers. Consider reflecting on the following questions and sharing your opinions with us via social media. With your permission, we will add your responses/opinions in the following newsletter to further develop the conversation (and it totally can be confidential too!)

Please feel free to expand or ask other questions, and let us know what you think, here.

1. Do you know anyone who has ever experienced homelessness? What was it like for them? If you do not know anyone, how do you think it would be?

2. What are you doing to keep you and your family healthy during COVID-19?

3. What else are you thinking about homelessness and/or COVID-19?

Spotlight Writer

El Carlisle, Co-President

El is one of the Co-Presidents for Habitat for Humanity. She became a member during her first year and served as Volunteer Chair for one year, and President for two years. She is a Criminology, Law & Society; Film & Media Studies; and Religious Studies triple major with a minor in Political Science. A graduating fourth year, she plans on pursuing a PhD in Sociology and obtaining a Juris Doctorate with the eventual goal of becoming a federal agent focused on Sex Crimes and Human Trafficking. When she is not busy writing her three honors thesis projects, she enjoys podcasting and DJing for her weekly show on KUCI. She is currently learning how to knit, German, Spanish and how to play League of Legends during her time in quarantine.