Over the past few months, we have been covering the COVID-19 response in Seattle and King County. The US Interagency Council on Homelessness has been providing webinars for service providers and government officials as a tool to guide their state-specific response. The focal point for many of these webinars is Los Angeles County, and Seattle and King County. With some distance from the initial COVID response, many of these counties are implementing a plan for the second wave, as well as permanent supportive housing.
In Seattle and King County, they are beginning to move towards phase two and looking at the impact of reopening. The main priorities for the officials in Seattle and King County have been de-intensification, managing public health risks. The plans that have been put in place for these goals include mobile response teams that help with COVID-19 testing and primary care. This is part of their prevention and outbreak response. The Field Assessment, Support, and Technical Assistance teams were designed to give shelter specific support, that would identify best practices. In conjunction with these teams, they developed a STRIKE strategy that would specifically target a cluster of positive COVID-19 tests.
In the future, Seattle and King County are developing a plan that will provide equitable access to treatments and vaccinations as they become available. They want to build trust with the clients so that treatment will be easier to administer. This will require infrastructure that is supportive of preventative care. To achieve this, Seattle and King County are refining capacity efforts and bringing in additional data about the layout of facilities and demographics.
In preparation for the second wave, the three teams, STRIKE, FAST, and mobile teams are going to sustain reactive testing, as well as practice testing based on underlying risk. Resource centers will be tested monthly, and individuals showing symptoms every seven days. To accomplish this, they are going on-site with service providers, and other resource providers to figure out what specifically is needed in each facility. They know that increased restrictions will result in a loss of shelter beds, so in forecasting future demand they are looking at how hotels and I&Q facilities can continue to operate.
Another large element will be using this momentum as a springboard to grow stronger behavioral health infrastructure, and serve the communities that have been disproportionately hurt by COVID-19.
In California, Governor Gavin Newsom has been leading a full-scale effort to house Californians who may be at higher risk for COVID-19 in Project Roomkey. The guiding principles for Project Roomkey are, no one who is sheltered through COVID-19 efforts should return to the street--quickly house the most vulnerable people, curb inflow into homelessness, prepare the system for future crises, and ensure racial equity.
The main tool that Los Angeles County has utilized is their Regional Homeless Advisory Council. This has over 60 seats on it with all stakeholders involved. They have developed a framework to deal with: immediate, short-term, medium-term, and long-term actions. Some of these actions include intervening with rapid-rehousing and problem-solving infrastructure. Some individuals after COVID-19 quarantine will transition into permanent supportive housing, while others will be put into rapid-rehousing while wrap-around services are still needed.
To build this housing infrastructure, officials in Los Angeles County are prioritizing unit identification, minimization of turnover, quick assignment of available units (7 days at max), and more staff who can work on finding housing, and facilitating turn-around.
Both of these counties are using COVID-19 as the launch for more holistic homeless services. COVID-19 has opened the door for across the board communication amongst all stakeholders. They are setting themselves up to be in a great place going forward.