Health |

Sheltered or not, new coronavirus challenges for the Chicago area’s homeless: ‘I don’t think we can paint a really rosy picture’

Missy Lee’s nerves are shot.

She’s had bronchitis for about a month and is feeling increasingly helpless as the coronavirus outbreak grows wider and wider. Unlike a lot of people, she can’t isolate herself at home. She doesn’t have one.

She lives with about 40 other women in a shelter in Chicago. Their beds are about 2 feet apart, even after many residents, including Lee’s partner, were moved to comply with the 6-foot social distancing guidelines.

Lee has trouble sleeping. “There’s so many women that are coughing,” she said. “We don’t know if any of them have the coronavirus because nobody’s been tested. One breathes, we feel it.”

The Tribune interviewed Lee and a dozen other homeless people in the Chicago area who are struggling through a health crisis that threatens the services they rely on to survive.

Those in shelters worry that conditions are ripe for contagion, while others are trying to hold onto their accommodations as their income dries up. In the last few weeks, Chicago has readied beds in five locations to transfer shelter residents and meet additional demand. The state has set aside $8 million toward isolation housing and homeless assistance.

Advocates say efforts to limit exposure among a vulnerable population are promising, but they are not yet enough to meet increasing needs as the pandemic destabilizes more and more people.

Lee has been at her shelter on and off for the past four months, and lately has taken to sleeping near the front of the dorm to stay clear of others. The shelter now operates around the clock, allowing residents to leave for short breaks throughout the day. It has stopped accepting drop-ins for more than a week, and staff have drawn up lists to track capacity as people wait to get in.

But Lee says she can’t wait to get out. “The minute it starts warming up, I’m ready to start sleeping outside,” she said. “I’ve got a better chance of not catching the stuff out there than in here.”

‘Decompressing’ shelters

Lisa Morrison Butler, head of the city’s Department of Family and Support Services, said she sympathizes with Lee and that the situation at most shelters is changing every day as the city focuses on “decompressing” them. As of last Friday, the city had moved 164 people younger than 60 and with no preexisting conditions out of shelters and into alternate locations.

A spokeswoman for the department said it is done thinning out the shelters and that 665 of the 900 new beds announced last week are now ready. The department said the additional locations will take in referrals from 311 because city shelters are full.

Hotel rooms for people in need of isolation will only be available to those with confirmed cases or known exposure to the coronavirus, a restriction advocates say does not take into account the lack of testing among those needing a place to stay.

Morrison Butler said the city is also looking for isolation housing alternatives for the homeless “to be ahead of the curve,” adding that the city does not need the space yet.

There has been one confirmed case of the coronavirus in a shelter, a staff worker, and one resident at another shelter was hospitalized awaiting results. Both facilities remain open.

Julie Dworkin, director of policy at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, said there has always been a need for more beds in Chicago and the coronavirus outbreak is exacerbating the problem. “I don’t think we can paint a really rosy picture where everything’s great,” she said.

While Chicago has worked to enact social distancing in the shelters it funds, a resident at the Pacific Garden Mission, the city’s biggest shelter, told the Tribune preventive measures are still falling short.

“We’re in a close environment here … self-distancing, it doesn’t exist,” said the 65-year old resident, who did not want to be identified for fear of being kicked out of the shelter. “We sleep on top of each other. We sit on top of each other. We eat on top of each other.”

‘A nightmare that I can’t wake up from’

Two days into the state’s stay-at-home order, the food plant where Leo, 54, worked for the past weeks told him not to come in anymore. He had heard rumors from other workers that several people had tested positive for the coronavirus, and soon afterward he got a call telling him to take the rest of last week off.

Leo got that shift through a staffing agency and worked nights, which meant most overnight shelters were out of the question. He says he left South Suburban PADS just before it moved about 60 people into a hotel in response to coronavirus closures.

Homeless for about five years, Leo says shelters are “chaotic” and has mostly stayed in hotels for the last few years. But on Monday, his stay was up, and he wasn’t able to get into the SSPADS hotel.

“I’m basically out on the street until I figure something out,” he said. “This is a nightmare that I can’t wake up from.”

The number of unemployment claims has skyrocketed in Illinois, mirroring the rest of the country.

As the situation worsens, the pandemic is highlighting a social order Leo is long familiar with. “If you’re in a situation where you’re poor or disabled, you’re catching more hell than anybody else.”

creyes@chicagotribune.com

akim@chicagotribune.com