The city is housing 6,000 homeless people in hotels as part of the effort to limit the spread of the coronavirus, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Saturday.
The numbers will include not only people who are showing symptoms or who have tested positive for COVID-19, but also people from shelters where it has been “difficult to achieve social distancing,” de Blasio said during a press briefing at City Hall.
Where it’s clear “that social distancing cannot be achieved properly, some of those clients will be moved to hotels,” the mayor said. “We will use those hotels aggressively as a tool, in addition to the homeless shelters, to make sure those who need to be isolated are isolated,” de Blasio said.
The city is also opening 230 new “safe haven” beds and low-barrier beds to get homeless people off the streets.
So far, 343 people in the shelter system have tested positive for the coronavirus, including 20 people who died.
City statistics say 139 of those people are isolated within the shelter system, 81 are hospitalized and 39 are self-isolating. Another 31 have reunited with family or other housing option, and 37 have been discharged.
The figures do not align – the detailed figures add up to 347 people. The city did not immediately respond to a question about the disparity.
Outreach workers have made more than 12,000 contacts with homeless people on the streets, who number about 4,000. That effort has led to 12 people taken to the hospital, all of whom tested negative for the virus.
Roughly 58,000 people live in the city shelter system.
