I work for a local housing organization, and I come into direct contact with homeless people every day. Many of them tell me they know someone who is sick, or is sick themselves, but because they have no primary care physician, no health insurance, and no money, they can't get tested for Caronavirus, or any other health problem they are having. Per capita, Seattle has the third largest homeless population in the US. That fact, in addition to the poor and disjointed homeless services in this region is a clear prescription for bad things to happen regarding the control of the Caronavirus in the homeless community.
Recently, I read that Seattle Mayor Durkan approved an expansion of Tiny Home villages in the Seattle area. Maybe these new tiny homes won't be built until the virus more under control, maybe they will. But the point here is that the Seattle City Council, state representatives, local police, and all quadrillion and two health agencies we have in King County don't seem to understand that a unique approach will be necessary to avoid a bona-fied outbreak of Covid-19 among the homeless. And the tragedy is that it's already too late.The virus is here. It has killed 31 people and it's being reported that Washington State has over 370 known cases of the virus.
For all of the pretty names and concepts Seattle and King County uses for how we house people and provide social safety net services like: "wraparound services, housing first model, VI SPDAT indexing and prioritizing models, .... that are supposed to connect providers in order to treat the homeless and vulnerable populations, Seattle social services are as bad and disconnected as anywhere in the country as evidenced by our growing homeless numbers. If Seattle can't control its homeless population without the Caronavirus, it doesn't have a prayer of controlling the homeless population with a virus it can't control either.