Thomas Breen photo
Bryant Tatum (center) at Thursday’s press conference.
Bryant Tatum told Mayor Justin Elicker that he’s already been affected by the novel coronavirus outbreak: not because the homeless 30-year-old New Havener has contracted COVID-19, but because he can’t find a place to sleep as shelters cut their capacities in an attempt to mitigate the spread of the pandemic.
Tatum was one of a half-dozen homeless passerby to turn out to Elicker’s daily COVID-19 press briefing on the front steps of City Hall, which remains closed to the public indefinitely following the mayor’s state of emergency declaration from earlier this week.
Seven city residents have tested positive for COVID-19 as of Thursday afternoon, though city Health Director Maritza Bond said the actual number of positive local cases is almost certainly much higher, considering how few people have been tested.
After the mayor finished his prepared remarks about a new emergency order that limits local social gatherings to no more than 10 people, Tatum jumped in with a question, his smartphone held high, recording the mayor’s response alongside a wall of television news cameras.
He didn’t want to talk about the new emergency order. He didn’t want to talk about the city’s planned new 75-bed facility at Career High School for homeless people who have tested positive for COVID-19 but do not need hospitalization.
Instead, he asked how the city plans to help those homeless people who do not have the contagious virus but have nevertheless been hurt by the crisis.
Passerby listen in at Thursday’s presser.
“The people that are not infected that are homeless are being pushed out of the shelters,” Tatum said. “I know, because I’m one of them.”
He said he has tried to go to the Grand Avenue men’s homeless shelter, but couldn’t get a bed. He tried to do the same at the couple’s shelter at Chapel Street and Winthrop Avenue, and had no luck there either.
“There’s nowhere for the homeless to go,” he said. Setting up the emergency overflow facility for homeless people who do have COVID-19 at Career does little to help those who have not tested positive, or have not been tested at all.
“That essentially does nothing for the people who are still gonna have to be out here 24/7.”
“The homeless shelters have a capacity issue,” said Elicker (pictured).
That’s because the city is working with the shelter operators to make sure that the spaces are not too densely packed so that they can allow for safe “social distancing,” which public health experts have said is key to limiting the spread of the virus.
The mayor said that the city has rented 24 hotel rooms in the area to allow for people to make up for the reduced capacity in the shelter system.
“They said the hotels would be for the elderly,” replied Tatum.
When asked if those hotel rooms are currently occupied with homeless tenants, Elicker said the city has arranged the hotel rooms with local shelters, but he’s not sure if those shelters have filled any rooms yet.
“How do I find out where I can sleep tonight?” asked another man (pictured) in the press conference’s audience. “I’m homeless,” he said, and he hasn’t been able to get into any of the shelters.
“I would ask you to reach out to a shelter,” Elicker said. The mayor promised to talk with the man after the press briefing ended.
After the press conference, Mark Anthony and Theresa Lyck (pictured) said that they too have had a near impossible time finding shelter beds in the past few days.
And the problem for the homeless extends beyond where to sleep, said Anthony, expressing a concern increasingly common amongst the city’s homeless population. With libraries and restaurants and bars and City Hall all shuttered, he and Lyck find themselves outside nearly all the time.
“Everything’s closed down,” he said. “There’s nowhere to go.”
When asked where he and Lyck plan to sleep tonight, he replied, “Wherever I can.”
And does he know of anyone who might have contracted COVID-19?
No, Anthony said. But that doesn’t mean no one on the street has the virus.
“No one’s being tested. We just don’t know.”
Lyck described the past few days as disorienting, with so many businesses and public spaces closing so quickly. She said it’s been particularly difficult finding a shelter bed as a woman, since so many of the city’s nightly homeless shelters are for men only.
“I’m to the point where, if I die, I die,” Anthony said. “That’s where the point I’m at. Nobody cares.”
Fred DiMartin (pictured at right) was no more optimistic than Anthony about the upcoming days and weeks as the pandemic worsens.
“It’s crazy,” he said. “You try sleeping outside. Last night it was pouring out.”
And why not seek out a shelter? The answer’s simple, he said. “They’re all full.”