COTS: Coping with COVID-19
This week, COTS published an overview of our efforts to meet the challenges of the current moment to serve our clients in shelter, in our housing programs, and through supportive services. We hope this helps our community understand some of the challenges those experiencing homelessness face and some of the strategies our staff are using to keep our community safe and healthy.
“While the full impact of COVID-19 is yet unknown, we do expect it to have an exponential effect on the homeless community. In Sonoma County, 68% of homeless survey respondents reported having one or more health condition, making them particularly susceptible to illness, infection and death than housed populations. Increasing the urgency, a potential economic fallout could drastically increase the local homeless count and create an even higher demand for shelter and services. As that demand increases, so does the need for stronger sanitation, adaptable facilities, and additional staffing.”
– From COTS: Coping with COVID-19
COTS staff have displayed a remarkable courage and resilience through these necessary changes, and we are grateful to everyone in the community who has stepped up to make our work lighter: by donating food, funds, and necessary items, by making masks, by volunteering, and in so many incredible ways. We will continue to keep our community informed as we respond to the situation on the ground.
Report on the Sonoma County COVID-19 Homeless Team from Chuck Fernandez
People experiencing homelessness already have compromised physical, mental, and emotional systems. Living on the streets or in encampments with poor hygiene and dietary habits only make matters worse. For those coming into a shelter environment and living in a congregate environment, practicing “social distancing” is difficult.
So what is Sonoma County doing to address the homeless situation during these challenging times? LOTS. They set-up an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and a COVID-19 Homeless Team (Team) staffed with public health, medical, and City and County professional staff to direct homeless services and keep people safe. The EOC conducts twice weekly calls with all homeless providers in the County. We have several COTS staff on those calls.
The Team’s focus is on three areas:
- Mitigation Strategies, which emphasizes physical distancing and cleanliness. All shelters must comply with the six-foot rule. For COTS, our bed capacity will be reduced from 112 beds to around 56 beds to accommodate this change. The County is also working on placing 39 port-o-potties and hand washing stations throughout the County, including three in Petaluma.The Team is also working on getting supplies to homeless providers – hand sanitizers, masks and gloves, and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) as soon as possible. Food insecurity for the 2,000+ unsheltered is also important, so a separate Food Team is addressing that issue.
- Overflow, which means finding a new spot for people displaced from the shelter because of physical distancing. Those over age 65 will be placed in a hotel/motel room. This process has already started in Santa Rosa.
- Quarantine, whereby the EOC is securing sites for people who need to be in isolation. There will likely be several sites across Sonoma County.
Things are changing rapidly and the EOC and Homeless Team are moving as fast as is humanly possible. They are taking this responsibility VERY seriously. By the time you get this newsletter, things will have already changed. We will do our very best to keep you updated through email, on our website at cots.org, and via social media. Thank you for your partnership as we rally around our neighbors experiencing homelessness at this uncertain time!
Good News
These days the news can be overwhelming – but at COTS, we’ve been overwhelmed in a different way: overwhelmed by the kindness, resourcefulness and courage of this community!
First, thank you to everyone who has made a financial donation to COTS. Keeping people safe means all sorts of extra costs for COTS. We are so grateful to those of you who anticipated our need. We share the messages of support that you include with your donations and they lift our spirits. Many, many thanks.
Here’s more good news:
Our staff and a crew of volunteers are keeping our shelters and housing programs running—and running well. Patience, professionalism, good sense, good humor and bravery are the characteristics that describe our staff. Many of our regular volunteers had to step aside to protect their health or the health of a family member. We are grateful to a group of new volunteers from the community and from among our clients. Thank you!
Just as the masks that St. John’s Episcopal Church donated were running out, an old-timey sewing circle has formed to make masks for staff and clients. Many thanks to KC Greaney for organizing this effort. To donate materials and/or sew some masks, please contact Eileen Morris at [email protected]. Many, many thanks to St. Johns for being the advance guard of our safety efforts.
We have artisanal hand sanitizer thanks to Canna Craft and the City of Petaluma’s water quality laboratory.
And just as our gloves were running out, Petaluma Valley Hospital came through with several boxes. That was followed by donations of gloves from Petaluma Police and Fire departments.
Thanks to the City of Petaluma for the donation of a long passenger van. Having it means we can now transport clients to medical appointment with safe distancing. This is a game changer!
Shadi Shamsavari of Human Remedy surprised our staff with a Persian feast. And there’s more on the way. Thank you!
Girl Scout Troop 10103 had to halt their cookie sales, so they donated over 100 boxes of delicious cookies to our kitchen. Never fear, Scouts. We are prepared! And grateful.
Our stalwarts are sticking with us. Ken O’Donnell and Family from McNear’s Saloon and Dining House continue to bring meals to the Mary Isaak Center. And we simply couldn’t survive without Lace House Linen right now. We are going through so many towels to keep our kitchen and dining room clean and virus-free. Lace House Linen supplies us with regular deliveries of clean kitchen linens free of charge. Trader Joe’s is, as ever, the mainstay of our food program. Thank you to all of them.
Acre Coffee has provided delicious food for our kitchen, making sure no one goes hungry at the Mary Isaak Center.
Students in our Kids First Family Shelter have a better chance to keep up with their schoolwork thanks to a gift of Kindle Fires from West America Bank.
And we are grateful for the productive, practical and creative discussions we’ve had with Petaluma Valley Hospital, the Petaluma Health Care District, and Petaluma Police and Fire to plan ahead for when someone in our programs tests positive.
The best news of all? People are still finding housing!
Celebrate Volunteers!
Our Volunteer Appreciation event had to be cancelled, so we’re showing our appreciation online. Through the end of April we’ll be featuring stories of the people who bring our programs to life, like Peggy Iacopi, pictured above, who has been volunteering for COTS for over 15 years!
And to sweeten the deal, Redwood Credit Union has once again issued their second annual COTS challenge grant to our community – meaning all donations received before April 30 will be matched up to $15,000!
We hope these stories will be a ray of sun in uncertain times, and inspire you to give back too – so that COTS programs can continue to serve those experiencing homelessness in our community. Help us meet the match today at cots.org and by following us on Facebook and Instagram.
Please visit our website at cots.org/volunteer-appreciation to read all about our many volunteers. It may be online, but our appreciation is anything but virtual.
Are you a volunteer who is willing to share your story with our community? Contact Eileen Morris at [email protected].
Outreach
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? –King Lear
Some 400 years after Lear’s writing, we must still ask this question.
We don’t know how many people are camping in Petaluma during this season of pandemic. On a typical day, Outreach Specialist Jeff Schueller comes into contact with 40 or so. They’re camped by waterways and roadsides. They’re tucked under the freeway or bridges or behind buildings.
Jeff will tell you that they have very little to defend themselves against the virus. And much in their circumstances to make them indifferent to its effects.
Right now, COTS can’t offer these outreach clients a bed in a shelter. For the safety of our residents, we’ve had to decrease the number of people in our Mary Isaak Center dorm.
Jeff brings a big backpack out with him. It’s full of sandwiches, cookies, and fruit. The big pack also holds hand sanitizer, toiletries, socks, gloves, underwear. And his cards. “Everytime I see someone, even if I saw them the day before, I give them another card,” he says. “I want them to know who to call if they start feeling sick. And when this is over, I want them to know who to call if they want to make a change.”
“I stand ten feet away, but right now with everything closed, they are very happy to see me,” Jeff says. “I put the lunches and supplies down on the ground and we talk for a while. My hope is that we’re going to build strong relationships during this time.”
“They don’t have the news on all the time. Which might make them a little calmer than the rest of us. I’ll come out and they’ll ask, ‘What’s going on with that virus?’ I’m telling them what everyone says: stay six feet apart, keep your hands clean.” But they have no running water. Many public bathrooms and restaurant bathrooms are closed. COTS has had to reduce day-use services to protect our residents.
“Without a doubt, it’s not safe out there,” Jeff says. “Many of them are in desperate need of mental health care. And that can make it hard to make good decisions. There’s so much trauma.”
And, as of this writing, there’s so much uncertainty. What will federal and state governments provide to protect public health? To protect Jeff’s clients, and, by extension, the entire community?
“I am sharing all that I know with them,” Jeff says. “They understand that I’m standing so far away because I have a family to protect.”
No matter where we’re sheltering, we’re all going down rabbit holes, Jeff says, looking for anything to occupy us. “The other day I went out to one camp and they were all listening as one guy read from this big, big book. I was too far away to see what it was. So I asked them what they were doing, and they said, ‘He’s just reading words to us from the dictionary.'”
Jeff made a note to bring a few books with him the next time.
Jeff’s colleague Randy Clay covers Penngrove, Cotati and Rohnert Park. He also liaises with hospitals, long-term care centers and treatment facilities. The hope is to get people exited from care into safe situations.
We are so grateful to our community for supporting this work and for ensuring that COTS staff have the resources to reach out to the most vulnerable among us. If you’d like to support Jeff and Randy’s work, please donate here. We are also grateful for donations of socks, underwear and hand sanitizer.
Take-out is a hit
Take-out is a booming industry all over town, including at the Mary Isaak Center.
Meals are free to all comers at Mary’s Table. To promote social distancing, only our residents are dining in-house. Everyone else gets a to-go box. And what a to-go box it is. Pictured is Chef Janin Harmon’s Rosemary Chicken Breast with sautéed onions, bell peppers and squash. Those are accompanied by grilled asparagus, green salad and fresh Mandarin oranges.
Many thanks to the businesses which have donated to-go boxes, including Fishman’s Supply and The Shuckery in Petaluma!
Reminder: it’s not too late to vote for Chef Janin in the “Best Chef” category of the Petaluma People’s Choice awards. You can vote online by clicking here.