Dublin Core
Title
No Vacancy? CHA may have empty units. Why can’t supply meet demand? (2020)
Subject
housing requests and vacant units during COVID-19
Description
Nearly four months into the COVID-19 crisis, the network of shelters, isolation centers, and hotels that the city and organizations have put together to care for people experiencing homelessness has been relatively successful—though many shelter residents have contracted the virus, no one is known to have died from it. But the situation remains precarious. As the city’s designated isolation hotel fills to capacity, some people living with pre-existing conditions are stuck in shelters, where they stand at higher risk of contracting and dying from COVID-19. Others are falling through the cracks: Leah Levinger, former executive director of the Chicago Housing Initiative (CHI), told the Weekly she had met a man who was diagnosed with COVID-19, denied entrance to shelters on lockdown, and was not offered a placement in the city’s hotel, nor the isolated COVID shelters. According to Julie Dworkin, director of policy at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH), elderly people and others with medical conditions isolating in downtown hotel units are not in any position to return to congregate settings.
Creator
Morley Musick, author for the South Side Weekly