According to the Star Tribune, about 540 homeless adults with underlying health problems are moving out of shelters and into four hotels in Minneapolis in an attempt to slow the pandemic. COVID-19 has taken a heavy toll on the homeless in Boston, New York and San Francisco. In the state of Minnesota, 41 residents of homeless shelters have tested positive for the virus according to state health officials. The move is designed to provide social distancing in the community.
So far, Hennepin County has spent $4.3 million on the relocation effort, and it projects monthly ongoing costs of $1.6 million to house, staff and provide meals for those under quarantine in area hotels. Yet county officials maintain that the cost of leasing hotel rooms is a fraction of the potential expense of treating dozens of homeless people in area hospitals and intensive care units if a broad outbreak occurred within the shelter system.
“The idea is that we’re trying to save lives and keep the virus from ripping through this vulnerable population,” said Hennepin County Commissioner Mike Opat, who volunteered at one of the hotels last week.
The emergency effort was designed to shield people from a fast-moving virus, but officials hope the initiative will have a more lasting effect. By removing people from the often chaotic atmosphere of shelters, officials hope they will be able to better connect them to housing, medical care and other social services. Already, Hennepin County outreach workers have begun moving small numbers of people from hotel rooms into more stable housing.
“Once you extract someone out of that survival mode, and you create a new normal, they recognize that they don’t want to go back to a shelter,” said Christine Michels, director of housing stability and opportunity at Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis. “We can use this situation as traction to propel people toward permanent housing.”
