Supporting Frontline Staff During the COVID-19 Crisis

In early 2020 at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, as shelter-in-place and social distancing orders went into place, the uncertainty, confusion, and fear that swept across the country was experienced many times over by our unhoused neighbors and the frontline staff who care for them.

Inside homeless shelters where space is often tight, residents and employees were particularly vulnerable to contracting COVID-19. As a result, some shelters in western Connecticut closed completely, while others were forced to move people out of congregate facilities and into hotels. This required unprecedented system-wide coordination, and a rapid and massive mobilization of resources including staff, physical spaces, protective equipment, food and other supplies, which were provided by the philanthropic and public sectors.

During the later stages of the pandemic, as more resources for care arrived from the federal government through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021, system-wide coordination was again necessary to quickly and effectively distribute these resources to where they were needed most. 

Throughout, frontline staff at over 100 agencies throughout the region were taking risks every day. They trusted the Housing Collective, as the backbone for the homeless emergency response system, to have their back and support them by providing clear communication, flexible resource management, and nimble coordination, managing the crisis at the systems-level so frontline staff could focus on the critical daily work before them: keeping their clients and themselves healthy. 

Communication

Immediately, the Housing Collective set up standing meetings between the leadership of the Fairfield County and Northwest Connecticut Coordinated Access Networks (CANs) and state agencies–first daily, then three times a week, then weekly through 2020–to ensure everyone had access to information. These calls often included representatives from more than 25-30 agencies from across the region. They helped hold the system together during the first chaotic months of the pandemic, and became the state’s COVID homeless response coordinating body for the next three years.

Coordination

In partnership with the Community Health Center (CHC), the Housing Collective devised Shelter COVID safety and triage protocols. This included coordination with the Connecticut Department of Housing and 2-1-1 to transition any COVID-positive or exposed household into a non-congregate shelter immediately, at any time of the day or night, and supporting shelters to help them identify non-congregate safe spaces within their congregate shelter for isolation or transition to minimize the spread of cases. 

In one noteworthy example, the Housing Collective coordinated with several partners to convert a Super 8 motel into a shelter after every other local, volunteer-led shelter closed. We collaborated with the Connecticut Department of Housing to purchase the hotel, with significant staffing and financial support from the City of Danbury. Afterwards, our partners Pacific House from Stamford stepped in to manage the facility. Together, we helped coordinate hotel stays there for more than 500 people.

Resource Management 

The Housing Collective served as a conduit for resources, providing administrative capacity and an economy of scale to maximize those resources and ensure they arrived where they needed to be. At the outset of the pandemic, the Housing Collective helped smaller agencies hire new staff, including by paying new staff as contractors if an agency did not have capacity to hire directly at the time. We also served as a conduit of funding for the homeless response system in western CT at the request of Fairfield County’s Community Foundation and United Way of Coastal and Western Connecticut, and later led efforts to disperse state ARPA funds throughout the Coordinated Access Networks in Fairfield County as well as Northwestern Connecticut (Litchfield County and Greater Waterbury). 

During the first two weeks of the pandemic, together with frontline agencies and staff, we helped transition 205 individuals from shelters or unsheltered locations into hotels. By the end of the pandemic, working collaboratively from 2020 to 2023, we helped transition 2,156 households into hotels, including 1,706 in Fairfield County and 450 in Northwestern Connecticut. As a result of this coordination, no unhoused individuals in western Connecticut passed away due to COVID-19.

The chaos of COVID-19 demonstrated how absolutely essential and courageous frontline staff are in the homelessness, health, and human services sectors. It also demonstrated the importance of a highly coordinated system that frontline staff and local leaders can turn to for support during times of crisis. Further, it made clear the value of building trust between the frontline staff and the backbone organization within the coordinated system, to ensure our unhoused neighbors receive the care they need.