Homeless shelters, with the exception of the Compassion Center at 4210 Asher Ave. and the Salvation Army at 1111 Markham St., are quarantining residents and not accepting new folks to prevent spread of the new coronavirus, and the city’s Jericho Way day treatment center is allowing only two people in at a time to meet with their case workers or shower. The day center has set up tents on the outside to shelter people from the rain and has delivered food outdoors to them.
Mandy Davis, the director of Jericho Way, 3000 Springer, a mission of the national nonprofit Depaul USA in partnership with the city of Little Rock, said most of the day programs that serve the Jericho Way homeless are closed, so that the homeless have few choices where to go. She is asking the city vans that deliver the homeless to the shelter not to show up with 40 people, and she is trying to disperse the people who have already come. She said more tents are on the way to stop the crowding. “Social distancing is our top tool,” she said.
Many of those who come, particularly those who have been in homeless camps in the woods, are unaware of the pandemic closures, and she is trying to explain and mollify them. “They don’t know what [social distancing] means and why, so they get angry,” she said. Those who are allowed in to shower or meet with case workers are checked to see if they are healthy and their hands are cleaned with sanitizer.
“We’re learning literally by the hour” of how to handle the situation. “They’re outside in the rain, cold and wet and confused, and I’m outside, cold and wet and confused, trying to make the best decisions.”
Davis asked that people stay away, rather than show up with boxes of hand sanitizers or food, since that would cause crowding. The best way folks can help is to donate to Depaul USA/Jericho Way, she said.
William Tollett, development director of the Salvation Army, said the shelter has implemented its emergency plan, which includes cleaning all surfaces every 30 minutes around the clock, closing its dining room and providing meals to people seeking food in styrofoam at the door and setting aside an area for isolation in case anyone begins to show symptoms of COVID-19 infection. Beds are now 6 feet apart, which is limiting the number of residents; there are now 29 or 30, Tollett said. The Salvation Army accepts women and family units; no one is under quarantine at the moment.
He said the shelter may begin to take temperatures of staff and residents tomorrow. Only staff and residents are allowed within the building.
The Compassion Center at 4210 Asher Ave. remains open to people who need a place to sleep and is feeding lunch to homeless drop-in families and single people, Pastor Dick Holloway said this morning. There are 175 people being served by the shelter today, Holloway said; he said they are “in and out.” They are not under quarantine, unlike other shelters, including the Union Rescue Mission’s Dorcas and Nehemiah shelters. The shelter’s limit is 240 or 250, he said.
“As people come in, we give them hand sanitizer,” Holloway said, “and we are keeping the building itself washed down. We’re keeping everything as clean as possible.” He’s asking people to stay at least 3 feet apart and not to hug or shake hands.
Holloway is asking people at the shelter to wear a mask if they have a cold or cough. People living on the streets “are very vulnerable to the pandemic,” he said, because of their lack of access to water to clean themselves and tissues
“We have families coming up for food who are out of work,” Holloway said. “Some I’ve never seen before. … Different people, stressed out.”
Holloway said the Compassion Center would welcome donations of Clorox and hand sanitizer.
Carole Salley at Dorcas House, 823 S. Park St., where residents are under quarantine at least until the end of March, said people wishing to make donations should leave them in the donation box outside the facility. She said they’ve been advised at Dorcas House to leave donations untouched for several hours before bringing them in.