LOS ANGELES (CNS) — Thirty-five residents and two staff members of a Venice homeless shelter funded by the city of Los Angeles have tested positive for COVID-19 since July 26, according to a media report.
The shelter — located at Main Street and Sunset Avenue and managed by People Assisting the Homeless, or PATH — has 154 beds and had been operating at 75-person capacity during most of the pandemic, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday. The shelter increased capacity to 100 people, which was its pre-pandemic population, following a recommendation from the city on May 14, when COVID-19 cases in Los Angeles were decreasing.
The Department of Health Services' Housing for Health program medical director Heidi Behforouz said that agency doesn't have power to regulate how shelters are run, but her team was worried that increasing capacity of congregate shelters was premature. Her team told The Times that it recommended the city have a COVID-19 response team visit the shelters and give advice if they were going to have their capacities increased. A DHS team visited the Venice shelter and gave written recommendations on keeping people safe, The Times reported.
"Our concern was exactly what happened, which is an outbreak like this," Jennifer Hark-Dietz, deputy chief executive officer and executive director of PATH, told the Times. "What we all have to do is really weigh what the risk is of being in a site where you can contract the virus versus being outside." She added that her team thought that as cases were declining and testing and vaccinations were increased, it would be better to provide shelter to a greater number of unhoused people.
The city told Hark-Dietz the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority agreed that certain shelter capacities could be increased, The Times reported. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said that since mid-June it was up to shelters to decide spacing protocols, but the agency recommended that shelters require universal masking and leave six feet of space between beds, but could decrease to three feet if six wasn't possible, according to The Times.
The first positive case at the shelter was reported by July 26, and as of Thursday, 37 people had tested positive, according to The Times, which said other city-funded shelters have had outbreaks but not as large as the one in Venice.
The shelter is on lockdown to contain the outbreak and people who tested positive are in quarantine and isolation facilities, according to The Times. Sixty people remain living at the shelter and new residents are not being accepted.
Hark-Dietz told The Times that two people who were staying at the shelter and tested positive for COVID-19 died in late July, but one died of an overdose and the other person's cause of death was not known.