We’re singing the praises of the unsung heroes who work with Miami’s homeless people | Opinion
There’s a photo I share whenever I can. It’s a homeless outreach worker beneath an underpass working hand-in-hand with a nurse to engage and administer a COVID test to a man living under a bridge. It captures perfectly the kind of work that goes on in our community in service to those experiencing homelessness.
Like healthcare workers, homeless-outreach workers, resident care technicians, case managers, food-services providers and others on the front lines of homelessness put their families on hold and put themselves at personal risk. They engage and care for those on the streets, in shelters and in specialized programs that house some of the most vulnerable members of our community. While so many of us retreated to the safety of our homes when the pandemic hit, our homeless “continuum of care” was rapidly developing and building out an emergency infrastructure to protect individuals and families in the face of a highly infectious, community-spread virus.
Under the leadership of the Homeless Trust, and together with many partners, our continuum of care led the most aggressive COVID-19 testing, retesting and tracing program in the state, with more than 24,000 PCR tests administered and a positivity rate that averaged 1.3%, remaining well below the countywide average. We stood up five full-service quarantine and isolation sites with more than 6,500 intakes of COVID-positive or suspected homeless individuals. We safely triaged to a single site almost 300 senior citizens experiencing homelessness to provide specialty care for this high-risk group. We handed out truckloads of masks, wipes, sanitizer and other personal protective equipment. We took vaccines to those in shelters and on the streets. We kicked housing efforts into high gear and continue to work feverishly to match ready tenants with rental subsidies and with willing landlords. Our efforts have not been without heartache — 10 lives have been lost — but our first responders press on through pandemics, hurricanes, building condemnations and more to help those in crisis.
Our 482 heroes, which comprises Homeless Trust staff and from our provider network, including team members from Lotus House, Miami Rescue Mission, Salvation Army, Camillus House and Better Way, are as diverse as those we serve. Among the newly enlisted: a high school student who prepared baked goods all summer long for isolating seniors experiencing homelessness — whom he never got to meet; the amateur seamstresses who stitched hundreds of masks for clients and staff when PPE was nearly non-existent; and the all-women, all-Black owned hotel group that opened its doors to help us quarantine our very first COVID-suspected guests, later employing one of them. Recently, that formerly homeless individual cried with gratitude for everything those women have done to change his life. Yes, our unsung heroes will tell you, the ups and down of this work is as volatile as the positivity rate.
Nineteen months in, the pace of caring for people experiencing homelessness has not slowed. Unsung heroes continue to engage, assess, place, treat and house, and we continue to evaluate our COVID-19 response as we seek an end to the pandemic — and homelessness.
On this Homeless Awareness Day 2021, we honor all providers who are serving in Miami-Dade’s continuum of care led by the Homeless Trust. Their hard work does not go unnoticed.
Ron Book is chairman at the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust.