CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Mayor Lightfoot announced Monday new measures to help the homeless during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Our efforts have been particularly focused on our residents who are most vulnerable to this disease, and on the broader impact on social services and supports. Residents who struggle with pre-existing conditions, who do not have the means to withstand the loss of a job, or due to their living circumstances, who struggle to maintain safe levels of social distancing. This is particularly true of our residents experiencing homelessness. Residents, who like many of us, simply cannot close their doors to this virus," Lightfoot said Monday at a news conference.
"It is for that reason that we have rapidly escalated the establishment of a citywide system to prevent transmission of this disease within shelters and encampments, all in an effort to decompress congregate settings, allow for social distancing, and to safe lives. This effort has required the unprecedented mobilization of our city workforce in collaboration with medical providers, shelter operators, and advocacy organizations centering on both prevention and response."
Three weeks ago, the city announce its partnership with the YMCA of Metro Chicago "to fill a critical need in our shelter capacity" by opening space in YMCA locations across Chicago, to allow for "decompression of existing shelters and proper social distancing across our systems of care," Lightfoot said. Since then, Lightfoot said, the city has continued to build on those efforts through an additional partnership with the Salvation Army, to open temporary shelter spaces "with a total of 699 beds, including facilities dedicated to women and children."
Lightfoot said the city has also mobilized Chicago's medical professionals to assist shelters and healthcare workers with symptom screening.
"We have distributed more than 25,000 pieces of personal protective equipment, or PPE as they have become known, to shelter residents and staff, as well as to DFSS outreach teams and partnership with Rush Medical Center and Project HOPE. We have had DFSS teams continuously visiting encampments to ensure safety and nutrition and to respond to other needs," Lightfoot said. "We have installed portable washrooms and hand-washing stations in large encampments. We are working with our shelter partners to have nurses visit all of our city shelters and provide in-person education; as well as pairing community-based providers with local shelters for ongoing clinical support."
She also thanked Lawndale Christian Health Center for their partnership in providing housing to other high-risk individuals, such as the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions. To date, they have moved over 100 people out of congregate settings and into individual rooms with support services where they can be safe, Lightfoot said.
"Nonetheless, despite all these efforts, there continues to be a risk of exposure every day for people living in congregate settings and it is critical that we continue to monitor and rapidly respond to cases as they arise. With help from U of I Health and Rush Medical Center, I am proud to announce that we have extending our testing capabilities and will now be able to perform more tests of shelter residents and staff each week," Lightfoot said. "If people are diagnosed with COVID-19, it is imperative that they are rapidly removed from these congregate settings."
Lightfoot announced that through a partnership with Safe Haven, Rush University Medical Center, and Heartland Alliance, the city is opening an 100-bed isolation facility with wraparound services for individuals already in shelters, who require additional support for mental health and substance abuse needs.
"We are now looking to expand on this model to meet our citywide demand," Lightfoot said.
"The end of the crisis may just be a speck at the end of a tunnel right now, but it is through measures like these that we will be able to make that light eventually shine brighter. While no one is immune from this disease, what we have seen all too clearly are the chasms in our society when it comes to those who are vulnerable. They were in need before this crisis and they are more in need now, and we have to respond continuously to fill the void and address the need for our vulnerable populations."
Lightfoot thanked all who have stepped up to help those in need during the pandemic, and then turned it over to Dr. Allison Arwady, Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH).
"Obviously the stay-at-home order assumes that people have a home to stay in," Dr. Arwardy said. "And since the beginning, folks at the Department of Public Health, with so many partners across this city, have been calling out to make sure we do not forget the people who don't have a home to be able to stay in at all."
Dr. Arwady said what we know about COVID-19 is that is spreads through close contact, especially among people who live together and may not be able to maintain social distancing. It can be hard to detect, she said, because some people with COVID-19 have mild symptoms or perhaps none at all. It is particularly dangerous for people who are older or have underlying medical conditions.
"All of this means that we knew from the beginning that people living in homeless shelters would be at especially high risk. We knew COVID-19 could spread quickly and undetected among people like this, who are among our most vulnerable," she said.
Back in January, when Chicago has one case, the CDPH already had more than 100 people working across the city to figure out housing solutions, Dr. Arwardy said. Initially, she said, CDPH had to make sure that had spaces for isolation and quarantine for travelers coming in through O'Hare, who might not be able to continue their travel.
"The Health Department does not normally provide housing, although we work with a lot of partners in certainly pushing permanent housing for people who are unstably housed. That has been a long-term priority. But from that work, we continued building to make sure we would do everything we were able to do as a city to meet this challenge.
"Stopping an outbreak of COVID-19 among Chicago's homeless population has absolutely been one of the most challenging aspects of this response. We are not done. We have a lot of cases already, and we are working very hard to limit the spread in all of the situations where we can," Dr. Arwady said.