How the coronavirus is speeding California efforts to shelter the homeless

Before California had a coronavirus emergency, it had a homeless crisis.

Gov. Gavin Newsom devoted nearly all of his Feb. 19 State of the State address to homelessness, calling the California’s situation “a disgrace” normalized by years of disinvestment and “institutional failures.”

This week, the Democratic governor announced that the state has found a way to house — at least temporarily — thousands of people as the coronavirus pandemic takes hold in California.

“We’re already seeing hundreds and hundreds of individuals off the streets and sidewalks,” he said Friday at a press conference outside a hotel in West Sacramento, where 30 homeless people now live.

On March 16, the Legislature was forced to suspend its 2020 session as COVID-19 spread.

Before lawmakers dispersed to their districts, they unanimously passed a $1.1 billion aid package to help finance California’s quest to conquer the coronavirus.

Newsom issued a series of executive orders, including one to allow the state to use hotels and housing facilities as temporary shelter for homeless Californians. He then signed the emergency aid legislation into law on March 17, freeing up funds to finance those directives.

Among the first checks Newsom cut was $150 million on March 18 to support local efforts to funnel vulnerable homeless people into travel trailers, hotels, motels and other emergency shelters.

By Friday, the governor said the state had identified about 7,000 out of 15,000 rooms — what Newsom called the “First Phase” — to shelter COVID-19 positive homeless patients, those who’ve been exposed to the virus or those most at-risk of infection.

Within a “matter of days,” said Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, D-Los Angeles, the Legislature accomplished what “used to take decades.”

“This is not a drill. S**t hit the fan,” Santiago said. “It’s real, and all the decades of bureaucratic reasons for why we couldn’t do things have forced us into this issue. As it relates to homelessness, for decades we dropped the ball.”

A public health crisis

More than 150,000 people are homeless in California, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Nearly three-quarters of the population are unsheltered, living on the streets, or in parks and make-do encampments.

For the advocates who’ve long rallied at the Capitol and protested for policy changes, the coronavirus represents the emergency they’ve warned about for decades.

Bob Erlenbusch, executive director of the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness, said his agency has for years tried to heighten awareness over the lack of sanitation stations and bathrooms in Sacramento’s more than 200 parks.

During the state’s 2016-2018 hepatitis A outbreak and now with COVID-19, Erlenbusch said limited resources make it all but impossible for people experiencing homelessness to routinely wash their hands and practice other good hygiene habits.

“Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, (homelessness has) not only been a humanitarian crisis,” Erlenbusch said, “but it’s an affordability crisis and it’s a public health crisis.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued homelessness guidelines that instruct public health officials and emergency planners, among other authorities, to provide hygienic products near encampments, and highlight how vulnerable the homeless population is to contracting COVID-19.

The elderly and those with chronic illnesses like asthma, heart and lung disease and immunocompromised conditions like HIV and diabetes — which the homeless population experience at a higher rate — are at greater risk of complications from COVID-19.

The guidance also encourages individuals to set up tents and sleeping quarters at a safe distance from one another.

“In other words, to the homeless people, staying in place is staying in your tent,” Erlenbusch said. “A lot of people don’t have tents.”

Sacramento homeless waiting for rooms

Margot Kushel, professor of medicine and director of the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations, said she’s waited years for California to execute a homelessness housing plan with the speed witnessed today.

“The positive way of looking at it is in the face of an incredibly quickly moving crisis, how many resources have been garnered, how much political will has been garnered,” Kushel said. “We’ve always known what to do, but it’s the question of getting it done.”

Even with the swift action to free up emergency funds, however, Newsom said it will take some time for the state to get the housing in place.

It’s taken two and a half weeks for the plan to unfold in the Sacramento region. Although county officials said they’d already identified 221 beds and three hotels as shelter sites, they won’t be available until mid-April.

Newsom said 870 homeless people have been sheltered since mid-March, but acknowledged advocates’ concerns.

“They’re right,” he said. “Good enough never is.”

Housing not enough?

Assemblywoman Autumn Burke, D-Marina del Rey, said the coronavirus underscores the need for her “right to housing” proposal, which would require cities and counties to submit plans to the state to house their homeless populations by January 1, 2022.

Burke said the state will need to build on its housing process during the coronavirus, and recognize it’s not enough to shelter individuals.

Republican Assemblyman Kevin Kiley of Rocklin agreed.

“I welcome the governor’s efforts to slow the spread of the virus and protect our vulnerable homeless population,” Kiley said. “Those goals require more than shelter. Mental health services and substance abuse treatment must be given to those who need them.”

California has now authorized a total $800 million in emergency funds for the sheltering process, Newsom said on Friday. The Legislature’s most recent investment compounds the $650 million local jurisdictions were already using in emergency grants provided through last year’s budget.

In addition, Newsom said the Federal Emergency Management Agency has promised to refund local governments 75 percent of the money they spend to specifically house high-risk and coronavirus-infected homeless individuals.

The federal government also provided $118.5 million in direct homeless grants in the CARES Act, the $2.2 trillion federal stimulus package passed at the end of March. The money allows California to extend contracts with some of the hotels, motels and other temporary housing services on a month-to-month basis, Newsom said.

Some of the leases contain purchase options, he said, that could result in permanent housing for the residents.

“We’re not just thinking short term, Newsom said.

Though it’s hard to imagine now, the threat of COVID-19 will wane, lawmakers will return to the Capitol, policy hearings will resume, debates will continue and a 2020-2021 budget will be signed.

And for the 85 percent of Californians who are worried about homelessness in their community, that concern will likely return.

Santiago, the L.A. Democrat, said he’s still committed to passing homelessness legislation, including a bill that would waive stringent environmental review for emergency shelters.

“I think it’s a wake up call. The old ways of doing things is going to have to change when we shift gears,” Santiago said. “I now know that things can get done in a much quicker and faster pace. No idea too big is too difficult to do.

This story was originally published April 5, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "How the coronavirus is speeding California efforts to shelter the homeless."