Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Resident guests at Camillus House in downtown Miami maintain social distance in the cafeteria April 30, 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. (CNS photo/Tom Tracy) 

MIAMI (CNS) -- Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the CEO of Camillus House homeless shelter in downtown Miami made a quick stop at a local Dollar Store.

There, Hilda Fernandez bought up all the store's adult coloring books and colored pencils, along with an assortment of would-be bingo prizes.

Those supplies helped keep Camillus' 400-plus residents occupied while socially distancing from the wider community -- just a small part of the toolbox that Fernandez and her staff have been using to keep the residents safe during quarantine.

"We have been at this for quite a while, making sure we had supplies in stock, because we knew it was going to get complicated," Fernandez said, noting the additional costs have run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Six decades after its founding, Camillus House has grown from a small overnight shelter into a full-service center, spread across a series of new buildings and offering a comprehensive system of care for the poor and homeless. Those services include food, clothing, emergency, transitional and permanent housing, physical and mental health care, and substance abuse treatment.

At the main site downtown, the center not only houses 400 residents; it also provides a place where the homeless can get a hot meal, take a shower, pick out new clothes, and receive and send mail. They can also attend classes, like culinary arts training, and consult with on-site counselors and social workers.

But to protect residents and staff from the still-expanding pandemic, the shelter decided early to tightly restrict movement in and out. Staff also began regularly screening residents for the coronavirus, using a tool from the Centers for Disease Control.

Fernandez and her team also drew up an exhaustive list of campus and operational modifications to foster better social distancing and disinfection measures.

The coronavirus has continued to hit South Florida especially hard. As of June 16, cases in Miami-Dade County are continuing to rise, now with some 22,301 positive cases, 3,497 hospitalizations and a total of 847 deaths.

Despite the crisis, Camillus House still accepts people into the program if they comply with a coordinated entry process put in place by the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust and its Homeless Helpline.

"We made a decision from the beginning that we would continue to serve," said Fernandez, who also has worked previously with the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust. "At the end of the day, we believe (the homeless) are going to be safer inside our walls than on the street."

Once accepted into Camillus House, residents get twice-weekly temperature checks and a weekly interview that includes a questionnaire on symptoms. That ongoing screening process takes about two and a half days each week for all 400-plus guests.

The clients also are expected to wear masks at all times, Fernandez said. She added that the masks are replaced on a regular basis.

"That is a little bit of a challenge, but we are very aggressive in enforcing that," Fernandez told the Florida Catholic, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Miami.

If a client appears to show symptoms of the coronavirus, they are sent for testing and temporarily isolated in one of six new quarantine rooms at Camillus House. The rooms are retrofitted with negative pressure and ultraviolet lighting. If testing proves positive, the client is sent to one of the quarantine hotel rooms with the Homeless Trust.

Other safety-related campus modifications at Camillus House include rented hand-washing stations throughout the facility; dining hall seating limited to three persons per table, requiring a longer mealtime schedule; six large ozone cleaners placed in night community areas, including the kitchen and dining hall; and reconfigured dormitory rooms to promote greater social distancing among guests.

Camillus has continued its day center services for the street homeless, including breakfast, the mail room, clothing donations and other services. That program has been significantly modified, however, with new protocols to ensure safety and prevent an outbreak.

All the extra measures are straining the agency's discretionary funds, with more than $210,000 for coronavirus-related expenses to date.

And with residents staying on campus more, they also are eating more meals there: on average about 1,200 a day.

Camillus House also is trying to limit its guests' movement outside the shelter -- they can only leave the property for medical or other priority appointments, so the lockdown has kept them from looking for jobs or searching for an apartment or other permanent housing.

"Our poor clients -- a lot of them were moving forward, trying to move on to the next step ... but no one is really hiring for the kind of jobs our clients can get," Fernandez said. "It doesn't mean we have stopped helping them look for jobs, it's just a little more challenging for them to get one."

Volunteers to Camillus House, too, have been asked to stay away at this time, further straining the meal service operation.

On a bright note, Camillus House successfully applied for the federal Payroll Protection Program, and moved its annual auction fundraiser to an online Zoom platform on May 8, 2020. Another fundraising event is set for December.

Even as Miami-Dade County reopens, Camillus House will likely continue its new safety and social distancing protocols, according to Fernandez.

"We will continue to have measures in place to ensure that we minimize any risk of infection being brought onto our campus," she said.

We don’t have comments turned on everywhere anymore. We have recently relaunched the commenting experience at America and are aiming for a more focused commenting experience with better moderation by opening comments on a select number of articles each day.

But we still want your feedback. You can join the conversation about this article with us in social media on Twitter or Facebook, or in one of our Facebook discussion groups for various topics.

Or send us feedback on this article with one of the options below:

We welcome and read all letters to the editor but, due to the volume received, cannot guarantee a response.

In order to be considered for publication, letters should be brief (around 200 words or less) and include the author’s name and geographic location. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

We open comments only on select articles so that we can provide a focused and well-moderated discussion on interesting topics. If you think this article provides the opportunity for such a discussion, please let us know what you'd like to talk about, or what interesting question you think readers might want to respond to.

If we decide to open comments on this article, we will email you to let you know.

If you have a message for the author, we will do our best to pass it along. Note that if the article is from a wire service such as Catholic News Service, Religion News Service, or the Associated Press, we will not have direct contact information for the author. We cannot guarantee a response from any author.

We welcome any information that will help us improve the factual accuracy of this piece. Thank you.

Please consult our Contact Us page for other options to reach us.

City and state/province, or if outside Canada or the U.S., city and country. 
When you click submit, this article page will reload. You should see a message at the top of the reloaded page confirming that your feedback has been received.

The latest from america

A Homily for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by Father Terrance Klein
Terrance KleinDecember 09, 2024
President Joe Biden speaks at the lighting of the National Christmas Tree near the White House on Dec. 5, 2024. Catholic Mobilizing Network has initiated a national petition for Catholics to urge President Biden to commute the sentences of all 40 men currently on federal death row. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
We are at a critical juncture in the U.S. death penalty abolition movement. And we as Catholics—including President Biden—can heed the words of Pope Francis and light the way.
At a conference on the Future of theology, the pope stressed the need to expand the role of women in academic theology: “There are things that only women understand, and theology needs their contribution.”
My favorite carols are often among the least known.
Connor HartiganDecember 09, 2024