On April 5, two individuals experiencing homelessness tested favorable for the coronavirus at San Francisco’s most significant shelter. By Monday, simply over a week later, 81 individuals remaining at the Multi-Service Center South shelter– majority of its 125 residents– and 10 staff are confirmed to have COVID-19 Homeless supporters had actually been warning of such a break out for weeks.
On Monday, supporters and supporters required to the streets in protest– remaining socially distanced in slow-moving automobiles with signs– to duplicate their require one option: Check all 8,000 homeless homeowners in San Francisco for the infection and move them into vacant hotel rooms.
While homeless people represent about 0.9%of San Francisco County’s total population of 880,000, unhoused individuals so far make up 8.8%of verified COVID-19 cases (at least 84 cases are among homeless individuals, out of a overall 957 cases reported countywide so far).
” For weeks we have actually been raising our voices to require that unhoused individuals enter into affordable shelters– which in the context of an extremely infectious pandemic are hotel spaces or uninhabited units,” stated Dr. Rupa Marya, an associate professor at University of California San Francisco in health center medicine, on a call Friday led by the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness.
” The need is that they enter into hotels– not in a week, not in two weeks, however today,” she included.
The mayor, who otherwise has actually been lauded for San Francisco’s low numbers of coronavirus cases, has stated the city is following public health standards and striving to protect those most vulnerable. City authorities have focused on moving into hotels just homeless people with verified COVID-19 and those deemed “susceptible” for being over 60 years old or with underlying health conditions.
” If I could open every hotel space in this city and allow every person a place to remain, it’s not even a concern,” Mayor London Breed said at a Monday interview, noting that real estate homeless people during the COVID-19 pandemic “continues to be an obstacle,” and pointing to difficulties in discovering appropriate staffing to support homeless citizens relocated to hotels.
Since Monday, the city had still just moved 750 homeless people — less than 10%of its overall homeless population and just a fraction of the over 5,000 who live “