Hamilton shelters face crisis with dropping temperatures, spiking COVID cases

Matthew Matty" Lehman realized it could be a matter of life and death.

It had been cold, but now it was even colder. He had to get into a homeless shelter.

It was actually dangerous."

But when Lehman tried the Salvation Army on York Boulevard, it was full.

A staff person gave him a care package" - a thermal blanket, hat, gloves - and the 42-year-old, accompanied by an older friend, set about trying to find places to survive the night.

Basically, we were looking for anywhere there wasn't security and was out of the wind. The only option was to keep moving."

They ended up huddled outside the doorway of Hamilton Urban Core Community Health Centre on Rebecca Street.

The next day, he found a bed at Mission Services on James Street North and then got into a room at an east-end hotel the city has provided.

Lehman has been there for several nights but is uncertain about where he'll end up.

I'm kind of at an impasse," he said Monday, bundled in several layers of clothing outside Urban Core.

Men's shelters have halted admissions due to COVID-19 circulating among residents and staff.

The hardest hit is the Salvation Army's Booth Centre, where a spokesperson for the organization said Monday cases had hit 26. Two are staff members and the rest are residents.

Other men's shelters in Hamilton, operated by Good Shepherd and Mission Services, have also stopped intake, but amid far fewer cases.

An outbreak has been declared at a temporary overflow shelter Good Shepherd operates at the old Cathedral Boys' school on Main Street East.

But, as of Monday, there was room for newcomers in a separate part of the building, noted Katherine Kalinowski, chief operating officer.

It's fluid," she said about the changing impact of the virus on the city's homeless population.

But those without homes and the front-line staff who serve them need to be vaccinated as quickly as possible," Kalinowski said.

People who experience frequent homelessness often already have complex and chronic health problems, making them especially vulnerable to COVID-19, she noted. So that's a huge concern."

And if staff are hit with wide-scale infections, we have a problem," Kalinowski added.

Staffing in the sector was a challenge even before the pandemic hit, said Don Seymour, executive director of Wesley Urban Ministries.

We already had high turnover in the sector because we're not the best-paying folks in the world."

And a shortage has hampered Wesley's ability to operate a COVID-19 isolation centre at Bennetto Community Centre on Hughson Street North at its 25-person capacity.

But Seymour expects that to be remedied by Tuesday or Wednesday with the city's help.

The situation changes hourly right now," he said Monday afternoon, noting Wesley's other isolation centre on a floor in the agency's 52 Catharine St. N. building has room for at least 10 people.

So far, the men who tested positive at the Salvation Army's Booth Centre have stayed in three designated parts of the 82-bed building to keep them isolated from residents who aren't infected.

Since the earliest days of the pandemic, street outreach doctors and nurses have conducted voluntary coronavirus screening of residents and staff in the local shelter system.

This has previously helped keep case counts low and outbreaks in check, but the numbers crept up and exploded last week at the Booth Centre.

Dr. Kerry Beal, lead physician with the Shelter Health Network, expects the case count to continue to rise in the days ahead.

Tracing the contacts of those who have tested positive has been a challenge with a frequently shifting population, Beal said.

It's a problem within the entire shelter system, actually," she said. And I think public health is only now becoming totally aware of how much these guys move around from shelter to shelter, and how much they move around the city on a day-to-day basis."

Efforts to convince shelter residents who test positive to stay in isolation haven't always been successful, either, Beal noted. With every outbreak that we've had, guys leave every centre."

Moreover, staff are overwhelmed," she added. In addition to the overdoses and fights that erupt at shelters, there's the virus. It's a very, very difficult job. It doesn't pay well."

Throughout the crisis, the city has directed pandemic-relief funding to Hamilton's shelter system to create more physically distanced quarters, open surge" shelters like at Cathedral and book hotel rooms.

But with the cold weather, beds have filled up. Service restrictions, which are temporary bans for behaviour often linked to mental health and addiction issues, have limited the options further for some.

That could factor into whether someone is placed in a hotel room, said Wendy Kennelly, associate executive director at Mission Services.

There are a lot of factors that come into play. I think what it boils down to is the mental-health-care system is fractured and broken."

Matthew Lehman, a soft-spoken man with a placid demeanour who has been homeless for five years, says that he avoided shelters in warmer weather to keep away from drugs, as he manages a fentanyl addiction.

It's always right there, and there's no getting away from it," he said. If you're out camping, you can get out and move."

Lehman credits Keeping Six, a small street outreach organization, for its support, as well as doctors for treating a bad infection in his leg, which I might have lost."

He could see that the Salvation Army worker really didn't want" to deny him a place that night.

Lehman appreciated the care package she provided greatly as he hunkered down wherever he could.

It was really nice. It made it a lot easier to be out there, and I used everything in it."

Teviah Moro is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach him via email: tmoro@thespec.com