California Governor Gavin Newsam announced last month that he would allocate $ 150 million to the Project Romaki project, which aims to tackle the problem of homelessness during the Corona pandemic, and this project is being done in cooperation with local efforts to shelter 50,000 of the 150 homeless people in the state. A person in hotels.
Unique project
Although this project is unique among the United States in terms of inclusiveness, it remains insufficient in this crisis that requires proactive measures. Newsam will leave about 100,000 homeless as they are, while tens of thousands of Americans can lose their homes as a result of the economic downturn, and their fate will be the densely populated streets or shelters, which health experts say are ideal for transmitting corona infection among their residents, but the bad thing is This project is that the majority of the 50,000 people who are to be accommodated must first be infected with the Corona virus and then recover, and after that they will be accommodated in hotels.
But instead of waiting for people to contract Corona disease, it is necessary to immediately accommodate all homeless people in California in hotels, or in similar housing units during the period of the Corona crisis, which was done by only one city, San Francisco.
Last week, the city's municipal council voted unanimously to rent 7,000 hotel rooms with the aim of accommodating almost all of the city's homeless, before they became ill. In view of the outbreak of the disease in one of the city's shelters, the city decided to implement the decision since April 28, can this model be implemented throughout the state?
Abundant rooms
California has an abundance of hotel rooms, and given travel bans and procedures to stay at home, many hotel rooms are currently empty. In San Francisco there are about 30 thousand empty rooms, while the number of homeless people in the city is only 8,000, and in Los Angeles there are about 36 thousand homeless, and about 90 thousand hotel rooms, as it is expected that all hotels will close or stop providing their services during The coming weeks, as for the small towns in California, they have fewer hotel rooms, and of course fewer homeless people.
Newsam issued an executive decision on March 12th, allowing the imposition of state government authority over hotel rooms, and city governments will have similar powers, and the Los Angeles and San Francisco attorneys confirmed the correctness of the decision, and Los Angeles Governor Eric Garcetti confirmed that hotel rooms can be used when necessity. Newsam announced a plan to rent hotel rooms on March 18, and by April 18 its small towns had prepared 15,999 rooms while they sheltered 4,211 people in these rooms.
And due to the accelerated spread of the virus, securing rooms quickly these days will save many people and save money, due to the fact that the probability of displaced persons entering hospitals is twice or three times the possibility of entering ordinary people who live in their homes, and the possibility of them entering Intensive care rooms are two and four times the number of ordinary people, according to a recent study.
An expensive treatment
And after the outbreak in the shelters of New York City, 34% of people needed hospitalization, and if we take into consideration that the costs of treating a patient in the hospital for six days of the Coronavirus are worth $ 73,000, then this means that treating these numbers costs enormous sums.
In fact, securing a bed in the hotel to prevent the spread of the disease today may delay the use of a hospital bed or an artificial respirator that can be used by others, and at a time when there is a shortage of medical supplies, many empty hotel rooms are available, and this must be used to prevent more From injuries.
• Securing a hotel bed to prevent the spread of the disease today may delay the use of a hospital bed or an artificial respirator that can be used by others.
Due to the rapid spread of the virus, securing rooms quickly these days will save many people and save money.