The disconcerting phone calls started coming in this week. Antsy to open up businesses, people were once again complaining about all the tents.
My response was to feel a little terrified. A little raw.
Having the whole community focus on flattening the curve has had a unifying affect. We can share a commitment to public health, clear that people need to shelter in place. But if folks get reckless — and again view unhoused people as their problem — that could result in deaths.
So far, we’ve been extraordinarily fortunate that more unhoused people haven’t been stricken with coronavirus. The fact that there are only four reported cases of unhoused people contracting COVID-19 in Multnomah County is a fragile blessing.
But should people start pushing for the tents to be moved, should they flout guidelines, should they overcrowd areas without masks, housed folks could infect unhoused people. And I am terrified about the impact of COVID-19 spreading through unhoused communities.
According to the research of Dr. Margot Kushel, director of the University of California San Francisco Center for Vulnerable Populations, unhoused people age more rapidly than housed, presenting medically at 2.5 decades older. A middle-age person might need geriatric medicine.
Put another way, if people who are over 70 are considered at risk, that could mean that a person at 45 on the streets is at risk. There are many people who contend with disabling conditions – more than 70% of the people on the streets at last count.
We have many at-risk folks who don’t have good enough shelter — and they should.
This pandemic has transformed Street Roots. Like so many others, we’ve embraced the idea that we are all public health workers now — and that includes the Street Roots vendors who launched the Coronavirus Action Team. There are many skills among unhoused people, some acquired prior to homelessness, some because of homelessness.
Most people can’t walk into jobs from homelessness because of legal entanglements, spotty resumes and little access to hygiene services. But they have so much to offer, including being the eyes and ears of public health, delivering supplies, checking in on each other, contacting health officials. Raven Drake, who helped start the Street Roots Coronavirus Action Team and is now the health coordinator for the C3PO camps and is based at Street Roots, has developed a network: Portland Street Medicine, Rosehip Medic Collective, Outside In, Cascadia Behavioral Health, on and on. That’s the Rolodex to admire in these times.
I would like the greater community to embrace all these capacities in unhoused people, rather than see unhoused people as eyesores for business. I admit, there’s so much at stake, I’m a little raw (one Street Roots vendor teased me that all my rough edges are showing now). But here’s how I see it: If anyone who is concerned with “livability” doesn’t include making sure unhoused people stay alive, then that already euphemistic term is bankrupt.
And for folks who want unhoused people to go — somewhere — I hope they can be part of the solution. I’ve heard people complain that the Jupiter hotel isn’t full. That’s because more unhoused people don’t have COVID-19. The hotels are for symptomatic folks.
And do you know how you can ensure that those rooms get filled? By rushing out, reopening too quickly or without caution, and infecting unhoused people.
So please stay focused on the public health of all people. Here are some suggestions:
1. If people are in their tents, please don’t push for them to be moved. Push instead for more options, such as opening up hotels and motels or opening up shelter-in-place camp villages like C3PO elsewhere in the region.
2. Insist that hotel and motel rooms be opened to unhoused folks — not just folks who are symptomatic. Join the Street Roots campaign to help make this happen.
3. Support the many organizations working at almost twice the rate we once were. It’s that hard. Street Roots is one of those organizations, but there are many others. Blanchet House, p:ear, Rose Haven, on and on and on. Lift us up.
4. Advocate for revenue supporting unhoused people, which means voting yes on Measure 26-210.
5. Recognize that unhoused people are your neighbors in this pandemic. Lead with love.