The Corona epidemic may be a potential lifeline for homeless people

The advice of governments all over the world to their people to confront the Corona epidemic revolves around a fundamental principle, which is to stay at home, not to go out except for necessity and to follow the rules of social divergence to counter the spread of the virus.

But these tips do not benefit people who spend their nights in the streets or homeless shelters. For example, in a number of cities in France, charities claim that homeless people have been fined for not staying in their homes, even though they do not own homes at all.

Often times, government efforts require constant addresses to help people during the crisis. In Japan, the government has promised to distribute two reusable face masks to every family in the country, but it will not reach the homeless.

A glimmer of hope

However, charities working to improve conditions for the homeless see that the epidemic gives them a glimmer of hope, as it highlights - at least - the need to alleviate their plight. The homeless are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 infection, and thus its transmission, due to two reasons. The first relates to their physical condition, they are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases, as a British survey estimates that homeless people are 2.5 times more likely to suffer from asthma, and 34 times more likely to have TB, two diseases that make COVID-19 fatal.

According to The Economist, the average life expectancy of homeless men in England is 44 years, half of the national average, but in many countries, homeless people tend to be older than society as a whole, and this is evident in Japan, where the government estimates that there is more Of the 4,500 homeless, 43% are over the age of 65.

The second reason is the difficulty they face in practicing social divergence, as they gather in narrow spaces in camps and night shelters, and therefore the closure efforts may backfire. On the American West Coast, where many of the 600,000 homeless people live in the country, Officials tried to add accommodation.

However, Randall Koon, a demographer and sociologist at the University of California School of Health Feeding, says that the guiding principle should not be to put people at risk by increasing density, explaining: If the choice is between placing someone in a very crowded shelter or leaving it In his place, the risks of both options should be carefully considered.

A shelter built last month in Seattle, to reduce density on other shelters, has seen at least six injuries.

Kelly Duran, a doctor who treats homeless people in emergency wards in New York, stressed that mobilizing people in shelters is not a good solution, saying: Communities need to do everything possible immediately, to protect the homeless, and that means keeping them away from gatherings.

A group of researchers at a few universities estimates that if 40% of homeless people in America are infected with the Coronavirus, 21,000 people may enter the hospital and about 3,500 people may die, and the virus has already reached some homeless groups. On April 10, 68 people were infected Homeless, two staff members were confirmed to have been infected with the virus in the largest homeless shelter in San Francisco.

Cases were found in other shelters from Los Angeles to New York, and preliminary data from Boston show that homeless people develop the disease at a rate of 46.3 per 1,000 people, compared to 1.9 per 1,000 residents of Massachusetts in general.

Unknown number

By April 9, the infection had spread to 343 homeless in New York, and 20 of them had died.

The total number of dead among the homeless from the virus remains unknown, as most of the homeless cannot access the test.

Realizing the threat posed by crowded shelters, some governments have opened new facilities. In France, for example, 80 sites have been identified as potential isolation centers, and in Berlin, the city government has put in place emergency plans to accommodate 350 homeless people in a former youth shelter and elsewhere.

In Denmark, the Hus Forby magazine, which is being sold by the homeless, has reached an agreement with a series of youth hostels to accommodate the homeless, and in Melbourne, some nursing homes are being used to help the homeless.

The temporary solution to the problem of the homeless is an accidental consequence of the epidemic, as most hotel rooms are empty; allowing the homeless to be accommodated, and the governments afraid of the spread of the virus have been forced to take measures to solve the problem of the homeless and improve their conditions relatively. On the 26th of March, the government wrote The British to the local authorities are asking them to move the homeless people to suitable accommodation by the end of the week, although this goal was to be reached by 2024.

Although the target was not achieved within the three days, on April 10, hotel rooms were set aside for more than a thousand homeless people in London, and the number of homeless people on the streets decreased to 500 or 600 in England.

In America, too, a rapid consensus was formed that hotel rooms provided the best way to stem the spread of disease among the homeless, and given the limited number of rooms and much smaller than the number of homeless, priority was given to the most vulnerable, and cities across the United States, such as Atlanta, Baltimore, and New York, Seattle, and others, by taking the displaced from the streets to hotels, with the help of $ 4 billion in congressional incentives.

Gavin Newsome, the governor of California, has promised more than 15,000 hotel rooms for some of the state's 150,000 homeless, with the goal of self-isolation, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is to bear the most costs.

San Francisco's Progressive Legislators are proposing a more ambitious plan, which is to put all the homeless in hotel rooms if they want and leave them to care for themselves. Los Angeles, which includes 58,000 homeless people, has promised to provide 15,000 rooms, the first batch of which is to be made. Out of 1,300 rooms are ready by the end of this week.

Bad behavior

However, the move did not go smoothly everywhere, as John Bird, founder of Big Ashio, a social institution that works with the homeless, says that some have refused to accept residency in hotels because some are addicted and fear they cannot get drugs, and others have entered Hotels but did not rest and leave, and a 4-star hotel in Milton Keynes, near London, expelled a group of homeless people who had been re-inhabited because of bad behavior, such as injecting themselves with drugs onto the stairs.

In New Orleans, the homeless left the hotel unattended, and they gathered in the lobby, eliminating the benefit of placing them in separate rooms to achieve social distancing.

Although the official response to the Coronavirus is not yet complete, what has been done to improve the conditions of the homeless in the past few days highlights what can be achieved for this vulnerable group, if its problem is put as a priority after the crisis has passed.