Number of Lexington homeless living outside explodes. Is COVID-19 to blame?
The number of people living outside in Kentucky’s second-largest city has skyrocketed in recent months as many homeless are avoiding crowded shelters during the pandemic, Lexington officials said.
Typically during the warmer summer months, more than 50 people are unsheltered in Lexington. That number has likely grown north of 300, said Polly Ruddick, the director of the city’s Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention.
“We aren’t seeing an overall influx or increase in homelessness,” Ruddick said at a Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council Thursday meeting. “We are seeing a decrease in shelter use.”
The city had just under 700 homeless people in its shelters, living outside and in transitional and other housing in January, during its annual homeless count. That number, however, constantly changes.
The city’s main shelters, including the Hope Center, which houses men, and the Salvation Army, which houses women and children, still have available beds. The Catholic Action Center, which houses men and women, is not taking any new clients until it opens a second shelter space at its Industry Road location, which it hopes to have completed by mid-October.
Maj. William Garrett of the Salvation Army said the shelter has decreased its available beds and increased restrictions on when people can come and go. New clients have to quarantine at the shelter for 14 days.
Those restrictions have worked. There have been a few positive cases in the city’s homeless population but no widespread coronavirus outbreak, homeless providers said.
But those restrictions can also wear on people over time, he said.
“I think for some people with kids they have tried to find friends or family members to stay with,” Garrett said. “When we come home, the face mask comes off. When you are in a shelter, and you are home with a bunch of people, that face mask never comes off.”
Carrie Thayer, director of development for the Hope Center, said the shelter has also seen a decrease in shelter use. This fall’s warmer weather makes it easier for people to choose to live outside, she said.
“Because the weather is so nice and due to COVID-19, we think people are choosing to stay outside,” Thayer said.
But as the city moves into fall, the need for those beds will likely increase.
As temperatures drop, the demand for shelter beds increases, Thayer said.
“We are working really hard to expand our capacity before the cold weather starts,” Thayer said.
That includes possibly two temporary sleeper trucks that can house more people and allow for social distancing, she said. Hope Center is also examining its existing space on its Loudon Avenue campus to accommodate more people when colder weather hits.
Ginny Ramsey, director of the Catholic Action Center, said its second shelter space will have 80 new beds. The shelter already has people who are waiting for that space to open come October, she said. Catholic Action Center has not taken new clients since the pandemic began in March. That could expose the current people in that shelter to COVID-19, she said.
Ramsey said the shelter system cannot take people for just one night.
“We can’t do that until we get the rapid test,” Ramsey said, referring to rapid COVID-19 tests that can tell people in hours, rather than days, if someone is positive for the respiratory illness.
The jump in the number of people living outside has not gone unnoticed.
Councilman James Brown, who represents parts of downtown and the city’s East End, said he had received emails and phone calls about the uptick in the number of unsheltered homeless downtown.
“I also want to make sure we don’t criminalize being homeless,” Brown said during Thursday night’s council meeting.
Ruddick said street outreach workers have also reported that not everyone who is congregating downtown is homeless. That was true before the pandemic, homeless providers said.
“Some are what we refer to as ‘street-involved individuals’, meaning that they are housed and use open public areas for socializing and other activities,” Ruddick said.
In fact, many people who are homeless and living on the streets are not visible, Ramsey said.
Meanwhile, Ruddick said the city is working to encourage more people living outside to use available shelter space.
“This is the largest number of people we have ever seen on our streets,” Ruddick said.
This story was originally published September 28, 2020 at 12:19 PM with the headline "Number of Lexington homeless living outside explodes. Is COVID-19 to blame?."
