Boise sees increased COVID deaths among homeless people. Here’s what advocates are doing
More of Boise’s homeless people are falling victim to COVID-19, as the disease continues surging through the city and those lacking shelter.
Starting in August, the city of Boise and Interfaith Sanctuary rented 42 rooms in a Boise hotel to quarantine unhoused people who recently tested positive for COVID-19. Shelter and city leaders said the goal was to decrease the demand on hospitals already flooded with COVID patients.
Those rooms were soon put to use, as Boise’s homeless population soon saw a surge of COVID-19 cases, prompting new measures from local shelters and more residents filling hotel rooms.
At least five unhoused people who stayed at the hotel have died from COVID-19, with four dying in the past month, Interfaith Executive Director Jodi Peterson-Stigers said Monday.
All five were transported to local hospitals before they died.
“It’s a difficult thing to add to a job description — that is not normal for a shelter,” Peterson-Stigers said. “It’s a bad number for us.”
The city of Boise is acting as financial guarantor for the hotel rooms, fronting nearly $700,000 for six months of rent and staff support at the hotel, according to an Aug. 17 city memo. Peterson-Stigers asked that the hotel not be named to prevent a run on available rooms.
“In the current environment, the level of risk for exposure and death naturally rises for this group of community members,” the memo said.
The city will seek reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the hotel rooms.
This comes as nearly 3,000 total Idahoans have died from COVID-19. Deaths stemming from the disease have been on the rise, a problem made worse by the dwindling supply of hospital beds; only 13 intensive care beds were available in the whole state as of Sunday, according to state figures.
Peterson-Stigers said the shelter has started bringing in grief counselors to help staff members process the high level of death they’re seeing.
At one point, the hotel had 33 rooms full of COVID-positive people, nearly 80% of available rooms. As of Monday, that number had declined to just six, which Peterson-Stigers said is due to an aggressive vaccination campaign and dozens of recent discharges from the hotel after completing 10 days of quarantine.
As of Monday, 67% of residents at Interfaith were fully vaccinated, Peterson-Stigers said.
The shelter, though, is preparing for another potential surge. Interfaith now has an on-staff nurse at the hotel and more volunteers than in August, positioning them better to handle an influx of COVID patients, she said.
This story was originally published October 4, 2021 at 3:44 PM.
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