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As temperatures drop, Salem’s largest homeless shelter sees Covid outbreak

Beds at Union Gospel Mission’s current facility on Commercial Street, pictured in March 2019. (Troy Brynelson/Salem Reporter)

Salem’s largest homeless shelter has stopped taking in new men temporarily after six shelter guests and three employees tested positive for Covid.

The Union Gospel Mission in downtown Salem learned several residents had Covid last week and arranged a mass testing event Thursday through Northwest Human Services, executive director Dan Clem said.

The shelter stopped intakes last week with results pending. It’s also stopped allowing men not staying in the shelter to come into the building for hot meals.

Clem said they got results Monday morning. The mission currently has about 70 men staying there, he said, and others tested negative. There’s enough space inside to isolate residents with Covid from the others, he said.

One employee at the mission thrift store has also tested positive for Covid, he said.

“For guys that are in need we’ve been handing them sack lunches through the door,” Clem said. They’re also handing out blankets and referring men to warming shelters, though many shelters planned for the winter have yet to open.

The outbreak illustrates the dual challenge service providers face this winter as Covid cases are spiking across Oregon and restrictions intended to slow the virus’ spread have reduced the spaces available for people to sleep indoors.

Clem said the mission can normally sleep 198 men in the winter, but Covid protocols requiring more distance in sleeping areas have reduced that capacity to 110 before the outbreak.

Shelters and other congregate living settings, where people are often in close quarters, are considered high risk for outbreaks, according to Oregon Health Authority. Prisons and nursing homes across the state have been hit hard since the pandemic began in late February.

It’s difficult to tell if or how homeless shelters have been impacted by the pandemic thus far. The health authority has not publicly released data on cases tied to shelters, citing concern for individual privacy, and would not say how many Covid cases statewide have been tied to homeless shelters in response to a question from Salem Reporter.

Winter is typically when homeless shelters are most full, and Covid protocols have lowered the number of people who can sleep in existing shelters significantly. Salem First Presbyterian Church, typically the city’s largest warming shelter, can now hold 30 people overnight, down from 93 before Covid, and only opens when the temperature is below freezing.

The shelter opened last night and was full, said Rob Thrasher, the church minister overseeing the shelter.

Others in the warming network haven’t yet opened for the season, meaning men who can’t stay at the mission have few other options.

Clem said the men’s mission so far has escaped the ravages of the pandemic, though Simonka Place, a smaller Union Gospel Mission shelter for women in Salem, recorded a few Covid cases in July.

He said the mission hopes to reopen later this month and is awaiting word from the Marion County Health Department about the criteria they need to meet.

“We’re so used to saying, ‘Come down to the mission, we’ll be happy to take care of you,’” he said. “It’s very frustrating not being able to say that right now.”

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Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.

Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers city news, education, nonprofits and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for a decade. Outside of work, she’s a skater and board member with Salem’s Cherry City Roller Derby and can often be found with her nose buried in a book.