How the United States Chose to Become a Country of Homelessness
Advocates have been sounding the alarms for months issuing reports, penning press releases, warning politicians as an increasing number of Americans made jobless by the pandemic have fallen behind on their rent. Now, the warnings unheeded, the United States is facing an unprecedented homelessness crisis, one that is as predictable as it was avoidable.
I first saw signs of this coming catastrophe on May 26, as the markets in New York City roared the Dow was up 530 points, and the S&P hit an 11-week high. But in San Diego, Rudy and Christina Rico rummaged through a blue recycling barrel set out on the street. The couple, married for 37 years, hoped to scrape together $50 worth of bottles and cans. It meant dinner.
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In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, advocates for people experiencing homelessnes worried that outbreaks of the virus would sweep through homeless communities and put already vulnerable people in grave danger. The early months went better than many feared, but now, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times, L.A. officials are dealing with “a sudden surge in the spread of the disease through the homeless shelter system.” The county was seeing an average of 60 new cases of Covid-19 per week among people experiencing homelessness through the fall, according to the report. Those numbers doubled during the week after Thanksgiving, the report says, and in the most recent week, reached 547 new cases.
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The day after Christmas, Dr. Heidi Behforouz, medical director for L.A. County’s Housing for Health program, sent out a call of distress.
People living in skid row shelters were being diagnosed with dozens of new cases of COVID-19, and Behforouz needed a place to send them quickly to isolate.
The call went to the Rev. Andrew J. Bales, chief executive of the Union Rescue Mission, which before the pandemic had erected a large tent behind its five-story building on skid row to make room for more people without a home.
“We were able to make yet 1 more chess move against this Monster Genius Covid,” Bales said in an email to The Times. “We moved our men inside to 2nd floor and handed over keys last Sunday.”