SF Homeless Shelter Resident Contracts Coronavirus, Authorities Say

A person staying at a homeless shelter in San Francisco has tested positive for COVID-19, public health officials said Thursday, stoking fears among people experiencing homelessness and their advocates, that the virus could spread more quickly once it gets into the congregate facilities.

It’s believed to be the second confirmed case of a person experiencing homelessness to contract the virus in the Bay Area. The first, a man in his 50s, died in Santa Clara County last month.

The San Francisco resident was living at the Division Circle Navigation Center, which can house up to 186 people. The center is located near the 16th Street BART station on Mission Street. The St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Francisco operates the facility.

The resident is no longer at the shelter, officials in San Francisco said, and is being quarantined at a hotel in the city.

TJ Johnston, 53, stays at a shelter nearby. Even though the outbreak didn’t happen where he was staying, he said he’s concerned for those who could have been exposed to the virus.

“I’m concerned for myself and the other people,” he said. “It’s really been a main source of concern that people in the shelters would get the virus because of being in such close quarters and all.”

Abigail Stewart-Kahn, the interim director of San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Housing, said the person who tested positive for the virus was in good condition on Thursday. Due to privacy concerns, she couldn't disclose when the resident was tested or how long it had been since the resident had been staying at the navigation center.

Officials said Thursday they aren’t sure where the person contracted the virus or who that person came into contact with at the shelter. In the meantime, a cleaning crew will disinfect the center.

Stewart-Kahn said the city’s Department of Public Health took swift action once they learned the resident had tested positive. Masks were distributed to everyone at the facility, she said, and health workers began screening everyone there.

“Anyone considered a close contact, anyone who slept close to this person and otherwise vulnerable people will be relocating starting today,” Stewart-Kahn said. “That will accomplish both the isolation needs and the quarantining needs for anyone who might have been exposed.”

Other residents who aren’t showing signs of the virus, but may have been exposed to the person who tested positive, or who are at higher risk of complications if they contract the virus, may also be placed in a hotel to isolate, officials said. The same opportunity will be provided to shelter staff, as well.

Although her department had planned for a situation where a shelter resident would test positive, the news took an emotional toll, Stewart-Kahn said.

“I am a parent and a daughter and a friend and a sister, and so is this individual and so are the people around them,” she said. “We all get to go home, but the people who are already more vulnerable and have been exposed to the virus don’t have that privilege.”

The city has about 1000 hotel rooms available to quarantine people who live in congregate settings or are homeless, officials have said. About 130 of those rooms are already occupied.

The city is also planning to open a new temporary shelter with nearly 400 beds at Moscone Center West, so residents who are living in the city’s shelters can be spaced further apart. Stewart-Kahn said her department will then try to place medically vulnerable people who are living in camp communities in the city into hotel rooms.

San Francisco supervisors Hillary Ronen, Matt Haney, Dean Preston, Aaron Peskin and Shamann Walton were quick to criticize the city’s response Thursday to the coronavirus — particularly as it pertains to the city’s homeless residents. The group has called on the city to move people from shelters and tent communities into hotel rooms more quickly.

Standing in front of the Division Circle Navigation Center, Ronen said the group would put forward emergency legislation on Tuesday mandating the city lease 14,000 hotel rooms by the end of the month to provide places where people can quarantine and to prevent transmission of the coronavirus among the city’s homeless residents.

"History will judge us on how we dealt with that population," Peskin said, "which is why what me and the other four supervisors here are doing is such a moral imperative."