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UC Berkeley School of Public Health Releases New Report on COVID-19 Homeless Response

April 30, 2020 by Jonathan Leave a Comment

For the good of us all:
Addressing the needs of our unhoused neighbors
during the COVID-19 pandemic
 

Read the Full Report >>>>>

Executive Summary
As medical practitioners, public health professionals, and social scientists who are members of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health Community Action Team, we are committed to bridging the gap between scientific evidence and the community in an effort to ensure the health and wellbeing of people experiencing homelessness (PEH) during the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
In our report, based on a review of a wide range of evidence, we summarize the relevant public health principles and knowledge about SARS-CoV2 and its associated illness, COVID-19. We then highlight the reasons for the greater rates of illness and mortality of PEH before the pandemic. We link these causes to their higher vulnerability to SARS-CoV2 infection, severe disease and mortality. We then provide an overview of the latest policy developments in the COVID-19 response to homelessness in the San Francisco Bay Area and in 6 other cities. We conclude with recommendations regarding testing and housing to protect society’s most vulnerable people and the broader communities in which they live from preventable morbidity and mortality.
 
Some of our key conclusions include: 
1.     The public health requires that all of us physically distance/shelter in place, practice good hygiene and wear masks. However, it is clear that PEH cannot follow these directives in encampments, on the street, or in large congregate shelters.
2.     We recommend that all PEH be given access to housing and support so they can safely shelter in place, quarantine, or medically isolate. For most individuals this will require low-barrier hotel rooms or single-occupancy units. For others, this will require resources and supports to safely shelter in place in their current housing.
3.     Hotels rooms or other forms of single-occupancy units should be employed as prevention to prevent viral spread, not just for quarantine or isolation. Similarly, housing should not depend on test results.
4.     Provide hotel rooms with accommodations to make them appropriate for PEH, including safe transportation, storage of personal belongings, accommodations for pets and/or families, trauma-informed protocols, and adopting a low-barrier approach.
5.     We recommend expanded testing, not only in shelters, but also to unsheltered PEH. Surveillance testing is urgently needed to guide our policy.
6.     Communities’ response to COVID-19 must urgently address the needs for all PEH. This response should include families, unaccompanied minors and youth, and post-secondary students, as well as single adults. Similarly, the response should include individuals who are living outside, in tents, in encampments or in cars, as well as people in shelters. It should incorporate adequate access to sanitation and harm reduction principles.
7.     To allow PEH to shelter in place and to keep non-violent offenders out of jail and the courts, enforcement of laws that criminalize PEH, such as laws regarding panhandling and sit/lie, as well as property confiscation, ticketing and towing of cars where people are sheltering need to be suspended.
8.     Staff caring for PEH are first responders, who should have access to support to be able to perform their job in ways that will keep both them and their clients safe.
 
Ensuring that all PEH can properly shelter in place will:
·       further “flatten the curve”;
·       decrease the demand for services from hospitals;
·       protect our healthcare workers and first responders;
·       allow us to lift shelter-in-place orders sooner than if PEH are not sheltered-in-place; and
·       make it safer for those who are not infected to resume normal activities with minimal risk of infection when shelter-in-place orders are lifted.
 
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Dr. Colette Auerswald. coco.auerswald@berkeley.edu
Kamran Abri Lavasani. kamran@berkeley.edu
Haruna Aridomi. haruna.amy@berkeley.edu

Filed Under: Press Releases, Report

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FOR MORE INFORMARTION VISIT US AT: http://wraphome FOR MORE INFORMARTION VISIT US AT: http://wraphome.org/developmentdirector
WRAP is hiring a full-time Development Director with at least 2 years of non-profit fundraising management experience. WRAP supports our core members, allies, and others by providing organizing tools and research for each to use in their campaigns fighting the criminalization of houselessness and for affordable housing. We are helping to build a regional /national movement �together and strengthen �connections of WRAP’s priorities with broader anti- racism, classism, neo-liberal capitalism, and criminalization campaigns.
Register here tinyurl.com/Mumia-film for Thursday Register here tinyurl.com/Mumia-film for Thursday night’s online screening of this moving, informative, personal, important, and artfully-made film. Cast includes Cornel West, Angela Davis, Dick Gregory, Alice Walker, Ruben ‘Hurricane’ Carter, and Amy Goodman.
Forty years ago, the federal government slashed af Forty years ago, the federal government slashed affordable housing budgets of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), marking the beginning of the contemporary crisis of homelessness. https://conta.cc/3k4mDpA
Theatre of the POOR presents CRUSHING WHEELCHAIRS Theatre of the POOR presents CRUSHING WHEELCHAIRS 
Sunday 2/12/23 4pm San Francisco 2948 16th St.
Sunday 2/26/23 4pm Oakland 1540 Broadway 
For more information poormag@gmail.com
One of the questions we asked people we love about One of the questions we asked people we love about this continuing forty-year process of addressing the root causes of homelessness in America was recognizing that our comrade Paul has also been fighting this neoliberal bullshit for forty years. In earlier emails people spoke about the importance of WRAP. Here is what some of our friends had to say about Paul’s role over the last forty years. https://conta.cc/3vbUnUx
Next Thursday, the 22nd, at 11am we are having a p Next Thursday, the 22nd, at 11am we are having a press conference as the preliminary hearings begin and need all our allies to show up and call for justice! https://conta.cc/3FyNtgH
A lot of work done addressing oppressions across t A lot of work done addressing oppressions across the country takes place in courtrooms and legislative bodies. This work is not always successful due to the fact that the oppressors are the ones making the laws. But we know you can’t fight a system if you don’t know the ins and outs of how that system works.  https://conta.cc/3VQrVDl
Join the next Public Works Committee Meeting to re Join the next Public Works Committee Meeting to reject the “safe work zone” ordinance that aims to further criminalize unhoused people and their advocates during sweeps.
Monday, 12/12 at 10:30am
bit.ly/oakmtg-1212
Let's Celebrate Chucho Let's Celebrate Chucho
We are raising $40,000 for WRAP’s vital work at We are raising $40,000 for WRAP’s vital work at this 40-year mark, and all donations will be matched up to $20,000 in November and December! Contribute $40, $400, $4,000 to help make sure that mass homelessness is not around another 40 years. https://conta.cc/3VAWHQ8
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Denver, CO. Evaluating Mayoral Candidates’ Houselessness Plans Based on Houseless People’s Priorities - WRAP

wraphome.org

Housekeys Action Network Denver recently released our housing report “Pipe Dreams and Picket Fences”, detailing the findings from our su...
1 day ago
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