By Jeff Friedman
Editor’s Note: This week, Jeff Friedman, founder and director of Living-ston Philanthropies, Inc., reflects on the plight of the homeless with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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In my role as director of Livingston Philanthropies, Inc. (LPI), I continue to interact with our long-time distribution associates during the pandemic. It’s a fact that conditions are just horrible for the homeless and profoundly poor. It is even worse than before the emergency – much worse.
Preparing this week’s LPI content for the West Essex Tribune, our loyal and stalwart partner since the beginning of our work in 2011, I explored national articles focusing on COVID-19 and the homeless.According to the Reddit page dedicated to homelessness, ‘r/homeless, “As the COVID-19 outbreak continues, the challenges the homeless face have only gotten more extreme. Shelters are full, or closed, or too fraught with coronavirus risk to consider sleeping in. They have no access to toilets, much less toilet paper. They’ve been laid off, and there’s nobody on the street, so they can’t even panhandle. ‘When you’re homeless, there is no quarantine, or chill. Unless you’re the type that is comfortable laying on the ground in public,’ commented one ‘r/homeless user.”
FactCheck.org notes, “Viral posts suggest that COVID-19 can’t be a serious disease if it hasn’t ‘wiped out the homeless.’ But recent reports published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found high rates of homeless residents testing positive for the novel coronavirus.”
From Nature.com: “Researchers are beginning to test homeless individuals in the United States for the virus that causes COVID-19 — and are discovering that the situation is out of control; tests are rare and outbreaks are spreading below the radar. The lack of testing and assistance for people living in group settings — such as those in homeless shelters, nursing homes and prisons — threatens their lives as well as the nation’s ability to curb COVID-19, because these communities can rapidly become the epicenters of new outbreaks that will spread, say researchers.”
A City of Newark release dated May 4 noted, “Mayor Ras Baraka and the City of Newark have announced the launching of a program to offer mass COVID-19 testing to its entire homeless population. The program is the first of its kind in the state of New Jersey and perhaps the nation.”
I have not yet found the results of Newark’s testing program in my research.
For Livingston residents who are ...
