Here are my thoughts after last night’s special City Council meeting on COVID-19. Photos published with the permission of someone living at the city’s War Memorial emergency shelter.
We all appreciated the City Manager’s update, but too little time was left for questions from the council. The presentation took so long that we barely even got through a first pass of the council before time expired. My notes are full of constituent questions that went unanswered. Far too much time was spent prematurely thanking & congratulating each other instead of answering questions. I understand the need to keep morale up, but it was excessive. This is an emergency, not an awards ceremony, and we are still at the very beginning of our response!
People are dying, & the most vulnerable are counting on us to think critically and sharp. But we are given very little info, and questioning anything is met with dirty looks. I get that people don’t like criticism, but saving lives is more important than sparing feelings. At last night’s meeting, the City Manager said that clients made a “smooth and uneventful transition” to the War Memorial emergency shelter, and the Police Chief called the opening “seamless”. But I am hearing a different story from folks actually living through it…
Does this look safe to you?
Here are just some of the things I’ve heard from folks staying at the War Memorial shelter:
- No privacy
- Seated uncomfortably close together during meals
- Sharing cigarettes
- Not enough PPE
- COVID-positive individuals have entered the facility
Folks staying in the new shelter recognize that the conditions are unsafe. The problem is more than the space between chairs or a lack of partitions. We were told last night that there are temperature checks daily, but I spoke to someone inside the shelter who said that is not the case.
We fought tooth & nail to have everyone tested before entering the new shelter, and 30 people were pre-tested at the Warming Center last Thursday. But since the WC closed at 5 AM the following day, people who had just been tested had no safe place to go and were left exposed.
It wasn’t until Saturday that the Warming Center was kept open and people were asked to stay put until the results came in, so those who tested neg could be transferred to the Field House. Fortunately, only 3 people ended up testing +, and they were sent to shelter in hotels.
We obviously can’t force people to stay inside the shelter, but we also can’t test people every 5 minutes. Because of this, it is impossible to pull off a congregate shelter approach safely. & don’t the unhoused deserve dignity too? There aren’t even partitions between cots.
We are ignoring lessons learned from other cities, and the City Manager insists on celebrating a shelter that is inherently unsafe. Will it take a massive outbreak within the facility to get us to provide everyone with the isolated space they deserve?
The obvious solution: put those who need shelter into space where they can safely isolate, like a hotel or a dorm. If those who test positive for COVID-19 can be safely isolated in hotel rooms, why not those who tested negative? Wouldn’t that be the safest and most humane thing to do?
Compare all this to what we were told during last night’s meeting when I questioned the shelter:
- Everything is fine
- No problems here
- Quit criticizing from the sidelines
We need to get this right, and I will keep advocating for the safety & dignity of the vulnerable!