A homeless shelter on Chicago’s West Side is grappling with an outbreak of COVID-19 cases, prompting concerns from advocates and organizations as the coronavirus surges nationwide.
The Franciscan Outreach shelter, 2715 W. Harrison St. in Lawndale, had 55 of its 140 guests test positive for the virus last week, according to Richard Ducatenzeiler, executive director of Franciscan Outreach.
A majority of those who tested positive are asymptomatic, and about 20 of the most vulnerable people were transferred to an isolation wing set up by A Safe Haven, Ducatenzeiler said. The rest were isolated in the shelter’s southern dormitory.
“We’re not designed to serve as an isolation center, so it’s definitely not a perfect setup,” Ducatenzeiler said. “They’re still having to walk through common spaces in order to go to the restroom or take a shower, and trying to control that at all times becomes difficult.”
The outbreak is representative of an ongoing problem facing Chicago homeless shelters as winter approaches and officials face a surge in COVID-19 cases. Even with the city ramping up testing and safety protocols in shelters, some organizations say they don’t have the necessary resources or space to effectively combat a virus outbreak.
In the spring, after the coronavirus pandemic reached Chicago, shelters had to adjust rapidly to prevent virus exposure. City officials thinned out homeless shelters, ramped up safety protocols and moved many people into alternate locations.
The protocols worked to prevent outbreaks for much of the summer and fall, including at Franciscan Outreach shelters, until the recent surge in COVID-19 cases, Ducatenzeiler said.
He wasn’t sure where last week’s outbreak originated, but said the shelter receives numerous referrals daily and guests are not tested before entering, only checked for symptoms and told to fill out a questionnaire.
The outbreak has brought heightened levels of stress and anxiety to guests and staff members, Ducatenzeiler added. City officials brought the shelter a trailer bathroom and shower so those who tested positive won’t need to use the same facilities as other guests and staff members.
The city has also paused the shelter’s intake until the outbreak is contained, Ducatenzeiler added. City health department officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The outbreak seems to be mirroring what’s happening citywide in terms of a surge in COVID-19 cases, said Julie Dworkin, director of policy for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. She said “this large of an outbreak is definitely new” for homeless shelters in the city.
“Some shelters are able to isolate people and keep them separate and contain an outbreak,” Dworkin said. “But Franciscan was really not able to do that and many other shelters can’t do that.”
She said city officials plan to open an isolation space with about 72 rooms in the FieldHouse Jones Hotel, 312 W. Chestnut St., to house people who test positive. But “it’s still not going to be enough given what we’ve already seen at Franciscan,” she said.
“The city is already down 350 shelter beds so I think it is really concerning that people will have a harder time accessing shelter this winter,” Dworkin said.
Franciscan Outreach isn’t the only shelter wrestling with concerns about resources. Shelters citywide “aren’t set up to really provide isolation or quarantine space necessary when there is an outbreak,” according to Andrew Winter, CFO of Cornerstone Community Outreach, a nonprofit based in Uptown that has shelter capacity for about 200 people.
Cornerstone shelters have had about five cases of COVID-19 since October, Winter said. Two of those cases were in families, which complicates the issue since they need more isolation space and Cornerstone doesn’t have “the full resources to actually isolate well on site.”
“I don’t think the need would’ve been expected to be so large so quickly,” Winter said.
The approaching cold weather adds greater health risks to the problem, he added. In the past, shelters would set up warming centers or overnight emergency spaces for people experiencing homelessness, but there’s less of those available under COVID-19 restrictions.
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“With the reduced number of beds in general, and also with this weather change coming, it is a concern of ours, and we don’t know how to address it with the city,” Winter said.
At Franciscan Outreach, Ducatenzeiler said trying to contain the COVID-19 outbreak has “dramatically” increased expenses. Shelter officials have had to pay staff more for working overtime, offer incentive pay and purchase more cleaning supplies.
“We currently lack the ability to really be able to serve as a proper isolation center,” Ducatenzeiler said. “We don’t have the trained staff — we have shelter staff that are not trained in this capacity to be able to monitor health conditions.
“We’re really looking to the city and the state and the federal government to really be able to continue to provide shelters like us with the type of support and resources that we need to really adequately provide the level of safety and the proper isolation space (this) would require.”
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