The Homeless and COVID-19: Expedience, No Solution.

Where have all the homeless people gone? If they’re lucky, they’re in hotel rooms and re-purposed buildings or facilities set up to test, treat, or protect them.  In Memphis, where I’ve lived and worked in homelessness for a quarter of a century, I know where most of those that I’m familiar with have gone. As in many major cities in America, many, if not most of our homeless friends are in hotel rooms, emptied by the same horrific Coronavirus (COVID-19) that caused most visitors to the city to pack up and leave town. Memphis, for a variety of reasons, has far fewer homeless people sleeping on the streets, than most major cities.

That’s how I know that approximately 30 of the homeless women who are still sleeping in those hotel rooms are women who’d been sleeping at some of the 50+ churches that participate in Memphis’ Room in the Inn (RITI) program. Approximately 50 men who’d also been sleeping safely (when enough beds were available through RITI) were also transported to the hotels, along with 100 men from the largest emergency shelter for men in town. Some who’d usually slept on the streets also accepted invitations to stay at one of the hotels. Not all stayed. (It is not acceptable to cook crack cocaine in the hotel rooms or to ignore the safety precautions that are so vital in a pandemic.)  

Before the virus hit Memphis, these and other women and men had gathered each afternoon at RITI’s downtown location. There, depending on how many churches and beds had committed for the night, and whether they weren’t likely to pose a problem (most weren’t) they’d be assigned to, and picked up by drivers from the churches. At the churches, they’d be welcomed as guests, have a hot meal, usually cooked by the church’s volunteers, and have a safe place to sleep (on cots or mattresses). The next morning, they’d have breakfast, or a “to go” bag and be transported back downtown and dropped off at the site where they’d been picked up. RITI was working to expand the program but COVID19 brought that to a screeching halt. Now they’re working to help those who are in the hotels.

The sickest ones, those who knew they weren’t willing or able to try sleeping in a shelter or church or a hotel room with rules but no toleration for alcohol or drugs declined. Those who were too severely mentally ill to follow the rules or even accept shelter or housing, slept in parks, on the mall, under overpasses, and other places not meant for human habitation. If they’re lucky, they’ll survive but they’ll still be out there when this is over.        

P.S. This link will take you to a LOT of information about what was needed, is needed, and will be needed, along with plans to address some of the many inequities in our system. https://endhomelessness.org/covid-19-research/