“How to help stop this thing?” asked Sarah Zewdu, who lives in a tent encampment in San Jose and wonders what she could do to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Finding the right answer is hugely important for Zewdu and the region’s many other unhoused residents.
While experts and advocates have come up with quite a few solutions mostly involving testing, screening and sheltering, scaling up operations has proven to be a significant stumbling block.
“It has not been easy to provide adequate staff,” says San Francisco Mayor London Breed citing staffing shortages as she addressed criticism that the city’s relocation efforts have been too slow. “So I just ask for understanding, I ask for patience as we deal with this.”
But some advocates have found that answer difficult to swallow.
“As a pastor I never want to see anyone live like this, let alone thousands. It’s just surreal to me,” said Pastor Scott Wagers, a longtime homeless advocate in San Jose, as he looked around a crowded, litter-strewn encampment along Coyote Creek. “Our goal is to give them housing because housing’s going to save their lives.”
When the outbreak began he expected a response on a mass scale, sheltering thousands of residents into hotel rooms or emergency facilities. But the actual response has been more modest, focused so far on relocating the infected and the medically vulnerable. Official reports have put relocation figures for Santa Clara County in just the hundreds.
“It’s just shocking. Because I really believed, this time, the impetus would be there to make really make a move that was unprecedented,” said Wagers. “It’s an unprecedented situation and it calls for unprecedented action which would be to move people indoors.”
Other homeless advocates have been more understanding of the response from Bay Area officials, applauding staffing surges as well as steps to streamline the relocation process.
No matter who you ask though, it’s clear that this is an all-hands-on-deck moment.
“Everyone who is in this business right now is doing everything that they possibly can,” said Ky Le, Director of Santa Clara County’s Office of Supportive Housing. When asked about Wagers’ concerns about the pace and scope of the county-led effort, he said even if the county was able to surge capacity by 30% in a single day, “I think people will still be unsatisfied with the pace. And probably rightly so.”
In fact he says given the importance of this work, he welcomes the public prodding. “I think we have to be pushed. We are pushing, so I’m not frustrated with anyone who says we should be doing more. I agree.”
It’s a historic effort underway in the Bay Area. But in the face of historic risks the question is, will it be enough to protect the region’s most vulnerable population? That is the question keeping a lot of dedicated people working very long days.