The Role of Hotels in a Pandemic: How Do You Stay At Home When You Don’t have a Home?

People experiencing homelessness in Cleveland are already dying everyday from the lack of housing. Many already have compromised immune systems. It should be common sense that we cannot leave people on the streets. All the time, yes, but especially during a pandemic. It’s not a safe or healthy option for people or for everyone else in our city right now. We want to avoid having coronavirus run rampant in homeless encampments or in congregate shelters when nearly 1,500 people are experiencing homelessness in our community right now.

Our community needs to be providing comprehensive support to those “sheltering-in-place” outside. Rather than wait for people experiencing homelessness to grow ill and require quarantine or hospitalization, we can be proactive by putting people who are vulnerable into hotel rooms.  Hotel rooms are broadly unoccupied during this crisis and they meet the definition of non-congregate sheltering. What happens when our friends can’t practice social distancing because they must stand in line for shelter and meals? What happens when they can’t stock up on supplies, “go home,” and wait it out?  A new report from the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, and Boston University estimates that as many as 40% of people experiencing homelessness could contract the virus, and as many as 10% could require hospitalization.

The CDC's interim guidance for responding to COVID-19 among people experiencing unsheltered homelessness reinforces that sleeping outdoors often does not provide protection from the environment, quick access to hygiene and sanitation facilities, or connection to healthcare. Further, The National Low-Income Housing Coalition Disaster Housing Recovery Coalition recommends minimizing the number of people living in homeless encampments by identifying space in places like hotels for isolation and self-quarantine.

People experiencing unsheltered homelessness require a special trauma-informed, person-centered, and low barrier response to access shelter and housing services. It takes time and it takes trusting relationships to develop a deep understanding of individual histories and unique barriers. We are trying to heed the advice to protect people from exposure so that fewer people experiencing homelessness are part of the anticipated "peak" that is expected in the coming weeks where our healthcare system will be operating at crisis standards of care.

There is no better time for compassion and acting with an immediate sense of emergency. Those who are unwilling to go into the “homeless system” are generally left behind in our community’s response, but we don’t have to let that happen. If you’d like to support the work NEOCH is doing to get unsheltered people off of the streets during the COVID-19 outbreak, please donate here.