Wichita preps to pay for hotel stays for coronavirus testing, quarantine for homeless
How do you follow a coronavirus stay-at-home order when you don’t have a home?
Wichita City Hall has at least a partial answer for that question and is poised to approve $300,000 for hotel/motel stays for people who are or may be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19.
The City Council on Tuesday is expected to earmark the money from a federal Emergency Solutions Grant for room nights for homeless people who need a place to stay while being tested or quarantined for COVID-19.
Controlling COVID-19 among the homeless is critical to slowing the extent of the disease, a city report said.
Cornoavirus spreads rapidly through homeless populations and tends to infect twice as many as the general public’s rate, according to data from California and Washington, where the pandemic is more severe than in Kansas.
“Overnight and day shelters (in Wichita) proactively implemented prevention procedures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, including social distancing; screening prior to entry; temperature checks; implementation of CDC guidance for hand-washing, and education,” the city report said. “However, the prevalence of COVID-19 among the 530 individuals in the Wichita/SedgwickCounty area in congregate shelters or unsheltered is expected to range from 159 (30 percent) to 318 (60 percent).
“United Way (of the Plains) projects that 318 individuals will be symptomatic to the extent that COVID-19 testing will be warranted, and that 50 percent of those individuals will test positive for COVID-19.”
United Way will handle the administration of the hotel/motel program in consultation with city and county agencies, officials said.
“It would allow us to issue vouchers for homeless stays under two sets of circumstances,” said City Manager Robert Layton. “One would be if someone’s been tested (for coronavirus) and we’re waiting for the test results, which could be up to four days, the person would be isolated at a motel.
“And then, if someone does test positive, we could go up to 14 days for the quarantine period in the hotel.”
A city staff report estimated the cost at $100 a night per individual.
While that would cover a room at any but the most posh hotels in Wichita, the accommodations for homeless people won’t be luxurious.
They’ll be limited to motels that have direct access from guest rooms to the outdoors to avoid spreading COVID-19 through hallways and other shared spaces, said Sally Stang, city housing director.
“Sedgwick County Health Department has to approve each motel room for the chance of cross-contamination,” Stang said. “It goes beyond the (lack of) lobbies, it goes to the ventilation systems, because if they have ventilation systems that connect rooms we won’t be able to use them.”
Funding for the program will come from the city’s allocation of emergency grants provided by the federal government under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, commonly known as the CARES Act.
The city had been budgeted for about $240,000 in Emergency Solutions Grant funding for homeless programs before the coronavirus problem surfaced, the city report said.
CARES is providing an additional $850,000, which can only be used for prevention, preparedness and response to COVID-19 among the homeless, the report said.
This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 1:52 PM.
