Hotel Vouchers 4 All Provides San Diego Homeless People with Shelter During Pandemic

In Los Angeles, the city-led effort, Project Roomkey, is working to get 15,000 people experiencing homelessness into hotel rooms in the fight against COVID-19. Working with the LA Homeless Services Authority and state negotiators, partnerships with hotels are being developed and are already housing some of these individuals. While costing nearly $190 million, it is helping save lives and hopefully keeping hotels afloat.

In Los Angeles, a government-sanctioned camp has been developed for individuals experiencing housing insecurity. The camp, with around-the-clock security, offers residents water, meals, health care, and electrical outlets. While more have popped up as a response to slowing the spread of COVID-19 among those living on the streets, there have been arguments made for keeping them as a step toward more secure housing for individuals.

Across England and Wales, over 5,000 individuals experiencing homelessness have found temporary accommodations in hotels. Paid for by the government as part of it’s COVID-19 relief efforts, hotels are working with social services to help provide housing, food, and other basic necessities to those going through housing insecurity. Not without challenges, the initiative has seen zero deaths from the pandemic but those working to help this initiative worry about the long-term.

Runners in New York City are no longer able to freely exercise in public parks due to the number of other people now seeking escape in the parks during the quarantine. To compensate—and to lend a hand—a group of runners are now doing "runs" for people in need to pharmacies and other essential businesses to fetch supplies. Right now most of the errands run are for other members of the club, but they are also available for non-runners.

Aging seniors in rural Maine are high risk for COVID-19, so a musher and her team of dogs are set on delivering groceries to those who need it—by sled. Hannah Lucas, a resident of Caribou and an employee of the local convenience store, uses her skill set and team of Siberian huskies to deliver groceries from her place of work so people wouldn't have to leave their house. She aims for 4-6 deliveries a day and is booking days in advance.

In Los Angeles, city officials are working to repurpose recreational buildings to house those experiencing homelessness, in the hopes of containing the spread of coronavirus. The city and shelters are also partnering with a mobile laundry truck, which has been in operation for years serving low-income communities and those who are experiencing homelessness, to provide free laundry for those who visit.

The nonprofit Homeless Outreach Providing Encouragement (HOPE) began SafeLot, a program providing an approved parking lot where people living in vehicles can spend the night safely. Safelots have sprung up nationwide, particularly during high unemployment thanks to the pandemic. In Boulder, they've created tension with the regional agency charged with reducing homelessness. Its Housing First approach, emphasizing more permanent housing solutions, strikes some as contradicting safelots' shorter-term fix. Safelot advocates say it offers stability that acts as a bridge to a more settled lifestyle.

Prompted by the threat of COVID-19, Seattle and King County have rapidly taken steps to protect people experiencing homelessness with responses that activists have long sought. By moving hundreds of people out of crowded shelters into hotels, installing hygiene stations, and suspending the removal of encampments, officials scrambled to prevent the spread of the virus in ways that advocates hope will remain the policy after the crisis has passed. But the crisis has also gutted government budgets, and so permanent solutions may still be elusive.

An app called Homeis was originally designed to be a social network for immigrant groups in the U.S., but during the coronavirus pandemic it has turned into a lifeline for many undocumented people whose fears of deportation are compounded by the virus. Community managers on the app (some paid, some volunteer) now field questions from hundreds of thousands of immigrants about getting tested, how much power ICE has in hospital settings, the risk of getting infected in detention, and other coronavirus questions. The app is now a source of advice, support, and community during the COVID-19 crisis.

A collective of activists and anti-fascists named PopMob has transitioned from protesting right-wingers to producing hand sanitizer. They are working in collaboration with another group called The Rosehip Medic Collective and have produced more than 9,500 bottles (225 gallons) of homemade hand sanitizer. They work with groups like Sisters of the Road, Meals on Wheels, and Portland People’s Outreach Project to distribute the bottles to frontline workers and people experiencing homelessness. They also have a GoFundMe page that has raised over $9,000 to support their efforts.