California has secured nearly 7,000 hotel rooms to house the homeless during the coronavirus outbreak, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday, addressing ongoing fears that the still-spreading virus could devastate the state’s most vulnerable population.
The governor hopes ultimately to lease 15,000 rooms as part of “Project Roomkey” — a first-of-its-kind mass effort to get homeless residents off the street and out of shelters if they have COVID-19, have been exposed to the virus or are medically vulnerable. Bay Area counties already have begun slowly moving handfuls of their homeless residents into hotels and motels under the new project, but thousands more people remain unhoused.
The announcement came as the state approached 11,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 250 deaths Friday. The Bay Area accounts for over 3,000 cases and was approaching 90 deaths. Santa Clara County continued to be the region’s hardest hit, with 1,094 cases and 38 deaths and a positive-test rate of about 11% based on the latest data.
Newsom also announced Friday that 2,188 people infected with COVID-19 have been hospitalized, including 901 who are in intensive-care units, the latter figure representing a 10.4% increase from the previous day.
And fears of outbreaks in nursing and assisted-living homes continue to be realized: Contra Costa County health officials announced Friday that at the 47-bed Orinda Care Center, 24 residents and three staff members tested positive for the virus.
Across the state so far, the 6,867 rooms under Project Roomkey have housed 869 people, Newsom said Friday, while standing in front of a Sacramento-area motel where 30 rooms are sheltering vulnerable homeless residents. But it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the state’s more than 150,000 homeless residents. And some experts say most, if not all, of those people can be considered “vulnerable” to COVID-19 due to the harsh living conditions on the streets.
“We are not walking away from our obligations on homelessness,” Newsom said. “The state of California has entered into that space in unprecedented ways, and as long as I’m your governor, I’m going to be there doing everything in my power to support the cities and counties so that we can continue to keep people in an environment where they’re safe.”
The hotel leases that are part of Project Roomkey include an option for cities and counties to purchase the rooms, either by a right of first offer or a right of first refusal — potentially creating a possibility for longer-term housing for the homeless. That could help answer the question that has troubled many outreach workers since the crisis began: Where will these residents go once the outbreak is over?
“We worry what happens after COVID is managed, how do we support folks experiencing homelessness and needing to find permanent housing options?” asked Tomiquia Moss, founder and chief executive of All Home, a Bay Area-wide organization dedicated to fighting homelessness.
Moss has been discussing that issue with local officials and exploring how they could use state or federal money to turn both these hotel rooms and state-provided trailers into long-term housing. She said the governor’s words Friday were encouraging.
Newsom also offered new details about how Project Roomkey will be funded. FEMA has agreed to reimburse cities and counties for 75% of the costs, he said. Local officials can get the other 25% from the state.
San Francisco had moved about 120 people into these rooms as of Friday. Santa Clara County had 172 rooms as of Wednesday and had housed 105 people. Another 39 people were pending placement. On Friday, the county said every homeless resident who tested positive for COVID-19 now has shelter.
Alameda County officials have leased two hotels in Oakland and as of Tuesday had moved in five homeless residents showing signs of COVID-19.
Newsom defended the slow ramp-up, which has been criticized by homeless rights activists.
“We don’t want everyone flooding into all 6,867 of the existing rooms,” he said. “You don’t want to run to capacity too early. You want to do it in a methodical way.”
On Thursday, San Francisco reported what appears to be the city’s first confirmed case of a coronavirus infection in a homeless shelter. The resident, who had been living at Division Circle Navigation Center, has been moved into an isolation room in a hotel, and city staffers are screening other shelter residents for symptoms. The death of a homeless Santa Clara County resident due to COVID-19 was reported last month, but county officials have released few details on the case.
Newsom on Friday said at least 14 homeless residents had tested positive throughout the state so far — but acknowledged that number is almost certainly an undercount, as testing has been minimal.
In addition to Project Roomkey, Newsom’s other main homelessness effort — deploying trailers around the state for use as isolation housing — also is moving along, the governor said. The state bought more than 1,300 trailers from FEMA and private vendors and has deployed 584 so far — including hundreds to the Bay Area.
Oakland’s 91 allotted trailers began arriving this week. Forty-five will stay in Oakland on a vacant, city-owned lot next to the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, while the rest will go to other jurisdictions within Alameda County, including Berkeley.
San Jose received 109 trailers two weeks ago, but staff are working on refurbishing the dwellings and have yet to move anyone in.
To reduce capacity at crowded existing shelters and allow space for residents to practice social distancing, officials also are opening new shelters. San Jose opened Parkside Hall at the Convention Center this week to house 75 homeless adults who don’t have COVID-19. The city hopes to open South Hall next. San Francisco is opening Moscone West to 394 homeless residents and plans to add two additional shelter sites — with a planned capacity of up to 510 beds — by next week.
Staff writers Paul Rogers, Harriet Rowan, Kerry Crowley, Annie Sciacca and Thomas Peele contributed to this report.
