Homeless People (Olivia Coskie)
Fact Checked Source -
Catherine Kim, "During the COVID-19 pandemic, nowhere is safe for homeless people":
screenshot
Looking Deeper:
1.) "Between 2017 to 2019, the number jumped more than 30 percent from 7,394 to 9,706, according to a statement from the county"
This fact was interesting to me because I didn’t realize exactly the scope of how massive the population is, so when I read this I wanted to make sure that was an accurate depiction of the community size in a relatively large city. The research was conducted and shared by the Santa Clara County Census of San Jose and can be found at https://www.sccgov.org/sites/opa/newsroom/Documents/2019%20Homeless%20Census%20News%20Release.pdf.
2.) “And it’s not just a Bay area problem: In 2018, there were more than 552,800 homeless people in the US — 33 percent of which were families with children — according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.”
Again, this statistic seemed really large to me and I wasn’t familiar with the name of such an organization so I did want to check this claim for accuracy. The data was taken by a section of such an organization called the Continuum of Care, whose purpose was to record an estimated number of people homeless on a given night. Sadly, the last recorded data was from 2018 so I was not able to find any recent statistic to compare it to. It was found here, https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness-report/.
3.) “And until Tuesday, they were required to take down these tents during the day, further exposing them to the risk of contracting and spreading Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, according to the Los Angeles Times.”
This fact is important because it is literally the basis of my paper. This fact was supported by the documentation of the March 17th city council meeting report. The journal can be found here, https://clkrep.lacity.org/granicus/2020/03172020_jou.html.
4.) “A study that observed a hospital in Washington found that 32 percent of those hospitalized for respiratory diseases were homeless, compared with 6.5 percent of all patients hospitalized.”
Because my scholarly source has a similar statistic and it specifies a scientific study I wanted to check this fact. I traced it back to a NCBI published study done by Dr. Jim Boonyaratanakornkit from the University of Washington. The paper can be found here, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6590761/.
5.) “About 31 percent of homeless people in the US were over the age of 50 in 2014, according to the New York Times”
This fact came from a well known news source so I wanted to see where the original information was from to check the integrity of it. I found that the data came from the Housing and Urban Development department of Los Angeles. The do yearly comparison data of the population and I found the 2020 log of population growth here, https://www.hud.gov/press/press_releases_media_advisories/HUD_No_20_003.
6.) “And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that the risk of Covid-19 drastically rises after the age of 60.”
The CDC is a well known and very trustworthy organization, so I wanted to track down this fact to see how recently that information had come out and what other trustworthy information I could find around the topic. I did find the transcript of the CDC’s original press conference about the disease and was able to find the exact information that was in this article and much more. I found it here, https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0309-covid-19-update.html.
Analytic Essay:
The Struggles of an Ever Growing Population: Perspective of the Homeless on COVID-19.
The homeless population of the United States is often forgotten. Without directly seeing the encampments set up along streets or those with signs at stop lights, most people do not think about the ever growing population that is struggling to survive day by day. Very rarely do you hear news about the homeless population unless it is negative or a “miracle”. It is on the news when a person living on the street gets help or when there is a crisis, but only in those extreme cases do you really hear anything about them. Since the information comes from statistics of population size and age, which say something about the population averages but not about the individual. Who do they have to trust and get help from? “In 2018, there were more than 552,800 homeless people in the US”(Kim, 2020) and that population is growing more and more by year. During this stressful time, homeless people are more vulnerable than ever and need help to stay safe and healthy. This group is going to grow even more during this pandemic period due to small business closure and the shutting down of non-essential work, which is why it is so important that we draw attention to this community and attempt to get them the help they need.
COVID-19 is a serious problem for the homeless population.Due to “their potential exposure to COVID-19 might negatively affect their ability to be housed, and their mental and physical health”(Tsai, 2020). Without a stable place to call home in during this period of shelter in place, not only are they probable to be carriers of the virus and continue to spread it, but they are also so much more susceptible to get and suffer with this virus. No, they don’t have money to lose or homes, but this is life or death for this population because of the average age and health condition. The community is known to health problems due to a lack of hygiene and “problems have occurred as recently as last year, when outbreaks of typhus, hepatitis A, tuberculosis, trench fever, and Shigella bacteria were reported among people experiencing homelessness in US cities with large homeless populations”(Tsai, 2020). Due to the fact that illness is so easily spread throughout and around this community, the number of infections will increase dramatically and continue to spread in urban areas where the epicenters are located. And because the homeless population is both on average older and they live in such poor conditions that it has a detrimental effect on their health, their symptoms and effects of this virus will cause so much damage to them.
During this pandemic, all they want is the comfort of security and knowing that they can get the help they need. Now that the Los Angeles’s Department of Housing and Urban Development has allowed tented encampments to remain up throughout the day, they no longer have to travel day in and day out to find a place and risk the spread of the infection. It is a step in the right direction but there are so many other factors. They don’t have sources of food, such as food banks and soup kitchens now that they are closing down.Organizations can say that they are putting together “hand-washing stations, portable toilets, and weekly shower stations to these encampments” (Kim, 2020) but until it is put into action, it isn’t doing anything for those who need it the most. Nightly shelters aren’t up to regulation on social distancing and are being forced to close their doors. To try and provide assistance they need “testing kits and training on how to recognize COVID-19 should be widely disseminated to homeless service providers and deployed in shelters, encampments, and street outreach” (Tsai, 2020).These people need help. They need the city council, the state government, and the federal government’s attention to receive aid and be able to survive in these trying times. It is important to remember people who aren’t as fortunate in times like these, that is why I believe this is an important perspective to include on this site.
References:
Kim, C. (2020, March 18). During the Covid-19 pandemic, nowhere is safe for homeless people.Vox Retrieved from April 1, 2020, https://www.vox.com/2020/3/18/21183812/covid-19-coronavirus-homeless
Tsai, J., Wilson, M. (11 March, 2020). COVID-19: a potential public health problem for homeless populations.The Lancet Public Health. Retrieved from 1 April, 2020. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(20)30053-0/fulltext