Local homeless shelters have started administering COVID-19 vaccines to the homeless population.
Some local shelters have waited to provide vaccines to their residents until the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was available. Amy Pappas, the chief operations officer at People’s City Mission in Lincoln, said the one-shot vaccine is more desirable for the homeless population.
“[The Johnson & Johnson vaccine] will be easier to manage than trying to cover our homeless population that is very transient,” Pappas said. “So you're not getting one shot and then try to have everybody back around in three weeks to a month for a second shot. That would be kind of problematic.”
Lori Koch, the permanent supportive housing director at the Stephen Center in Omaha, said how they started to vaccinate some permanent residents at the facilities with the two-shot vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna.
“The permanent supportive housing residents that wanted to get vaccines have already had their first and are getting their second on [April] 13,” Koch said.
Koch said that the Stephen Center’s shelter guests will be given the option for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on April 14 since they don’t stay at the facility for very long.
Local shelters have a large number of homeless individuals who have either gotten the vaccine already or are interested in getting it.
“We're doing better than I think a lot of people imagined. We have been able to probably get about 50 to 60% of the people vaccinated,” said Steven Frazee, the senior program director at Open Door Mission in Omaha.“The individuals that haven't been vaccinated, are individuals that would typically be described as having mental health conditions that would make it difficult for them to understand the benefits of the vaccine.”
There are plans in place by different street outreach programs for vaccinating the homeless that aren’t in shelters.
Frazee said how there will be multiple opportunities for the homeless that aren’t in shelters to be vaccinated.“For example, there's the Charles Drew homeless clinic that they will be able to go to. There are other street outreaches, performed by Together, Heartland, Charles, and YES (Youth Emergency Services) that go out and try to encourage people to get vaccinations,” Frazee said.
When homeless individuals go to a shelter, they are put in a data management system called Homeless Management Information System. This allows all shelters in the area to have records of the individuals.
“We have a data management system that we can go in and most of the homeless people are already in it,” Pappas said. “If not, we can enter them, and then there's a drop-down menu where you can leave a note on there that the person has received the vaccination.”
The HMIS produces a picture ID, called a clarity card, for the residents since most come to shelters without an ID, Pappas said. This clarity card can be used as identification to get the vaccine. With homeless individuals that don’t have a form of ID, Pappas said that the shelter will have to just take their word about who they say they are when receiving the vaccine.
The local shelters don’t have future plans to make vaccines a requirement for the homeless.
“Currently, there isn't a requirement to be vaccinated. So, we don't even ask the question whether you've been vaccinated or not,” Frazee said. “In my opinion, it's against the law for anybody besides your health professional to ask you that question.”
Pappas said requiring the vaccine could deter some people from seeking help at a shelter.
“Of course we'll encourage [the vaccine], but not make it mandatory. We don't want to prevent somebody from coming in that really needs shelter because you know, maybe they're scared of needles or something,” Pappas said.
Homeless shelters in the area have not been affected by COVID-19 as badly as people originally thought they would be.
“I think I can speak not only for us but the whole entire homeless community, what was anticipated, expected, or maybe even experienced in other parts of the country has not been experienced here,” Frazee said.
Local shelters are still complying with county health departments and the CDC COVID-19 guidelines by social distancing, requiring masks and extra sanitization of high-traffic areas.
