Speaking at a Houston food distribution drive Saturday, where he was volunteering, Turner said 77 of the 183 additional people who had tested positive for the virus lived in homeless shelters, ABC13 Houston reported.
Clusters of COVID-19 positive cases have been reported in homeless shelters across the state: Austin’s downtown Salvation Army homeless shelter closed in mid-April after 12 people there tested positive, resulting in all 187 residents being moved to a hotel leased by the city of Austin.
Houston, Austin and Dallas, in addition to other Texas cities, have over the last two months opened additional space for homeless people, in hotels and convention centers, but many of the services where homeless people traditionally turned for help have had to shut down or dramatically limit operations because of the virus.
“Folks experiencing homelessness is one of the big challenges that you have during something like this virus because quite frankly it’s a really susceptible and vulnerable population,” Adler told KVUE, describing the city’s efforts to acquire places where homeless people can isolate.
Austin’s unsheltered homeless population increased by 45% – 488 additional people – from 2019 to this year, according to the city and county’s point-in-time count, a snapshot of a region’s homeless population on any given night and usually assumed to be an undercount.
