Triangle counties to spend millions to protect homeless, people in hotels from COVID-19
Durham and Wake counties plan to spend millions of dollars to help protect people who are homeless and people living in hotels from the coronavirus.
The Durham County Board of Commissioners voted Thursday to spend $1.6 million to rent 225 rooms at the Durham Marriott-RTP from April 10 to July 9.
On Friday, people were already moving out of Urban Ministries of Durham’s Community Shelter, the city’s biggest public shelter, executive director Sheldon Mitchell said.
Durham County had more than 250 cases of coronavirus Friday morning, according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services website.
“Our homeless population is among our most vulnerable residents at risk for infection,” County Commissioner Chair Wendy Jacobs said in a news release. “In addition, people living in congregate sites like our shelters are especially at high risk with the potential for rapid spread.”
Jacobs pointed to outbreaks of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, at a nursing home in Orange County near the Durham County line and at Butner Correctional Facility, each with about 60 cases as of Thursday.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended moving people out of shelters to help reduce the density of residents in group-care settings and allow for social distancing, Durham County stated in the news release.
But Urban Ministries will move all its residents out of its dormitory-style shelter to avoid potential infection from shared bathrooms and other areas, Mitchell said. The shelter had 88 residents Friday, including four families, and expects to house 14 more people next week, he said.
“Right now nobody’s sick, and we want to keep it that way,” Mitchell said.
The agency’s cafe, which serves shelter residents and more than 100 other community members seven days a week, will remain operating on a carry-out basis, as it’s been the past two weeks. Meals also will be delivered to those now staying at the hotel, Mitchell said.
Wake County’s hotel families
Wake County has already spent $500,000 to help people in hotels, who have lost work because of COVID-19, remain in those rooms.
More than 300 requests for help came in the first day, Wake County Commissioner Jessica Holmes said.
Now the county is looking at spending another $2 million to help.
Hotel families have long been an invisible population in Wake County — mostly along New Bern Avenue and Capital Boulevard — and there are more than 3,500 students living in hotels, Holmes said.
“It’s impossible to stay at home when you don’t have a home,” Holmes said. “We knew we had to change our strategy or risk hundreds if not thousands of children with no place to shelter in place. This was not only the right thing to do by our most vulnerable families, but this is also in the public’s best interest in our common goal to keep everyone healthy and safe.”
The city of Raleigh, meanwhile, voted this week to give Passage Home and Triangle Family Services $50,000 each for people living in hotels who have lost their jobs because of the coronavirus spread.
“This is a good first step,” Mayor Pro Tem Corey Branch said, adding the money is in addition to another $25,000 the city wants to use to help families living in hotels.
Wake County had more than 390 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Friday morning, according to the Department of Health and Human Services website.
Homeless in Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill and Orange County do not have shelters as large as Durham and Wake have.
The InterFaith Council for Social Service (IFC) operates Community House, a 52-bed men’s transitional shelter, and Homestart, which has 14 beds for women and 10 rooms for families. Both are in Chapel Hill.
As of Friday, executive director Jackie Jenks said, the IFC had 76 households in shelter and knew of another 30 to 50 people living outside. The IFC is working with local governments to help make these people as safe as possible, she said.
“We’ve done what we can to reconfigure sleeping arrangements,” Jenks said. “We also have some residents who have been able to stay with friends and family for a period of time. That’s become more difficult as the stay-at-home period has increased.”
This story was originally published April 10, 2020 at 11:54 AM.
