Nearly 200 people vaccinated in Spokane’s homeless shelters

The Spokane Regional District isn’t waiting to vaccinate people living in homeless shelters against COVID-19.

Although homeless shelters aren’t slated for broad vaccination efforts until later this year, the health district has hosted clinics to proactively vaccinate older homeless people who already qualify under the Department of Health Guidelines.

The health district steered doses to shelters – specifically, their guests who are at least 50 years old – because it considers the people living in them to be particularly vulnerable to the spread of the disease.

“Our efforts at the health district are to prioritize people who have limited access to health care and who are often marginalized or underserved,” said Kylie Kingsbury, the district’s homeless outreach coordinator. “So with the COVID-19 vaccine, we are not responsible for the whole community, we’re one of the players who are offering (the) vaccine in Spokane.”

The health district’s first priority, and that of the state Department of Health, continues to be vaccinating those in long-term care facilities.

“We understand that community members experiencing homelessness in shelters are just one slice of the pie of people who are most vulnerable … In a lot of cases (long-term care facilities) were harder hit than shelters, so getting them vaccinated is really important,” Kingsbury said.

Although the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in homeless shelters pales in comparison to those in long-term care facilities across Washington, several shelters in Spokane have experienced outbreaks.

Last week, for example, Union Gospel Mission announced it would temporarily halt all new intakes at its emergency men’s shelter due to a COVID-19 outbreak. Last year, Family Promise had to place its entire Open Doors shelter into a collective lockdown amid an outbreak.

Although shelters in Spokane have implemented a variety of health measures aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19, including sleeping guests at least 6 feet apart, there remains a risk for transmission.

Meanwhile, people who are homeless often lack access to health care services, transportation and a phone or internet, complicating the process of signing up for a vaccine with a private provider or at a mass vaccination site like the Spokane Arena.

The health district hosted 15 vaccination clinics across nine sites in late January and early February, according to Kingsbury.

It administered first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to 184 people experiencing homelessness, prioritizing shelters that are low-barrier and those that have had recent outbreaks. The health district surveyed shelters before launching the clinics in order to estimate how many people would be eligible to receive the vaccine.

To be eligible, a person had to be 50 years or older, a threshold based on the current Department of Health’s Phase 1B, Tier 1 guidelines for households in which two or more generations live under the same roof.

Staff members were also vaccinated if they are older than 65 or older than 50 and living in a multigenerational household, per the state guidelines.

Broad vaccination in shelters is not expected to occur until Phase 1B, Tier 4 of the state’s plan.

The health district expects to begin providing second doses of the vaccine to people during clinics scheduled in shelters later this month.

Given the unstable nature of homelessness, tracking those who have received a first dose and ensuring they receive a second is a challenge. Some providers widely offered to hold onto their guest’s vaccination cards, fearing they may be lost or stolen, Kinsgbury said.

About 40 guests at the House of Charity were among those vaccinated through the effort, according to Sarah Yerden, a spokesperson for the shelter’s operator, Catholic Charities.

The health district has recent experience hosting vaccination clinics in shelters, having planned them during a community outbreak of Hepatitis A, a disease that disproportionately impacted the homeless.

To its benefit, the health district found that people in shelters have been more aware of COVID-19 than Hepatitis A, Kingsbury said. The vast majority of people eligible for it were eager to receive the vaccine.