04.06.20 COVID-19 Briefing Live Stream Transcript

The County of Santa Clara
April 6, 2020
Live Stream - Live with the County of Santa Clara
10am PT

David Campos: Good Morning, my name is David Campos, I'm the Deputy County Executive with County of Santa Clara and you are LIVE with the County of Santa Clara. We are here today across the street from the Emergency Operations Center for the County where you have dozens of county employees that are working around the clock to make sure that we are responding to this COVID-19 crisis as well as possible to minimize the number of people that are infected and the number of deaths in the county.

Today we'll be discussing a very important subjectwhich is how are we addressing the needs of the homeless population, people that are facing homelessness in the middle of this crisis.

Before we do that I do want to note a couple of things, and I ask people to go to our dashboard, to our website to look at the latest numbers on where we are with the COVID crisis and that is at sccphd.org/coronavirus. That dashboard tells us that as of April 5th, we have 1207 cases in the County of Santa Clara. 59 new cases and a total number of 39 deaths. And of course our thoughts and our hearts go out to the families of those who have died.

We also want people to know that as of April 5th we have 191 ICU beds that are available in our system. We have 1438 surge beds that are available in our system and we have 435 ventilators. So with that let me now ask our one of our first guests Supervisor Dave Cortese, who has served on the board of supervisors for a number of years and has been a leader in the area of housing and dealing with the crisis of homelessness.

Supervisor Cortese, what do you want our residents to know about what the county is doing on the very critical issue?

Dave Cortese: Well, first thing I'd like people to know is that for the last five years the homeless population has been a huge priority for the county. During that time we have passed something called Measure A, thanks to you, the voters which has allowed us to build up our inventory of permanent supportive housing for the homeless. And it's something that we're continuing to do but it's also allowed us to to build up our own Department of Supportive Housing, our Office of Supportive Housing and to create things like the Valley Health Care Program, Homeless Health Care Program which is doing a great job right now, reaching out to the office and
reaching out to the homeless in fact both of those departments or offices or divisions are ready in large part, I think, because of the work that's been done over the last five years to focus on the homeless population.

So that puts us in the position today, of as of Friday having made sure that 174 of the homeless who were tested positive or infected are put into quarantine. That people who continue to be tested positive or exhibit symptoms can be moved out of encampments and into safe places and it also means that we know where encampments are we have we have the human infrastructure if you will to go in and screen and test and make sure that the unhoused population, the unsheltered population which is about 8,000 in this county gets the same kind of attention and care and resources and treatment and compassion that the rest of the population is getting right now.

So it's like everything else with COVID-19 right now. We've got a long ways to go. Nothing is yet perfect. We don't have
the vaccines, the inoculations yet that we need. But we're certainly doing everything we can as a county to protect our own house
population of our unsheltered population particularly and I'm very proud of them.

Campos: Thank you Supervisor Cortese.

And a person that perhaps some may not know who has played a very important role when it comes to the issue of homelessness and housing people in the county is Ky Le, with The Office of Supportive Housing. And I've known Ky because of this work with Measure A, which as Supervisor Cortese said, the voters passed and because of the work of Ky and his team, the implementation of that measure is ahead of schedule. So from that perspective we have the experts the people who know how to get this done. So, Ky, what do you want our residents to know about where we are because it really is about giving transparency and giving them the numbers?

Le: Yes, thank you David.

The Office of Supportive Housing has the privilege of coordinating and implementing the county strategies to reduce and prevent homelessness. For example, between 2015 to 2019 we helped over 14,000 men, women, and children who are homeless obtain permanent housing. We were meeting some of the need before and during this crisis we were challenged to increase our services to meet a growing demand. And of course when I say we, I mean the staff at The Office of Supportive Housing, the other county departments,  and our key partners from the cities, from the Housing Authority, nonprofit agencies, and Destination:Home

Campos: Ky, one of the questions that people have asked me is so we have homeless folks in congregate settings what are we
doing to make sure that the guidelines are out social distancing are followed even in that setting?


Le: Yes, thank you David. So when the order to Shelter in Place first came out, we had approximately 2000 to 2100 shelter beds. We could house or temporary shelter 2000 to 2100 homeless men, women, and children. In order to meet some of the social distancing requirements, we have set a target reduction of about 300 shelter beds and we have been able to do that and expand shelter bed capacity which will also be more too later. But definitely we are meeting social distancing requirements. We also had all of our shelters go 24/7 and all of the seasonal shelters extend to their duration.


Campos: Thank you. Now a very important program that we have here and Supervisor Cortese talked about Valley Homeless Healthcare
program and we have Libby Echeverria who is here to talk about that. Can you talk about what the program does and some of the outreach outreach efforts that you have engaged in?

Libby Echeverria: Absolutely.

So the Valley Homeless Health Care program in normal life provides comprehensive medical services to people who are homeless and
that includes primary care and behavioral health services. However, in the face of coronavirus we have created an entirely new medical delivery system. We have closed most of our clinics and we've redeployed our staff to address this epidemic. One of the things that we have done from the very beginning of this is to outreach to the encampments. And that's in partnership with The Office of Supportive Housing and the city and our community partners all of which who have outreach teams. We went and we've provided a lot of education to
our encampments about the virus itself, about what they can do to protect themselves with. We provided hand sanitizers to them we coach them on social distancing and coach them on how to receive medical care if they were experiencing symptoms or saw somebody else who is experiencing symptoms.

Campos: Ky, can you talk a little bit about how we're expanding capacity in our system as we're looking you know to the days ahead?

Le: Sure, as of Sunday we have added approximately six hundred and two spaces temporary shelters spaces for homeless individuals and families. These 602 spaces include congregants shelter settings like the Gateway Pavilion at the fairgrounds, Parkside Hall, and the City of San Jose. It includes also hotels and motels. And as I mentioned earlier, this 602 beds, half of it made up for the capacity that we lost in order to meet social distancing requirements but we do have a net of over 300 shelter beds so far and we're working to expand both congregate and non-congregate shelter sites in the coming days.

Campos: So we on an ongoing basis will be giving you more detailed information not only about the issue of homelessness but other issues as part of the daily briefing and we will maintain you updated on what's happening with homelessness because the numbers change but we're going to continue to work. I'll turn it over to Supervisor Cortese to have the last word here on this issue of homelessness but on the COVID19 response from this county. Anything else that you want the constituents of Santa Clara County to know from you Supervisor?

Cortese: Well, first of all I think what we all want to do is thank the constituents, the residents of Santa Clara County housed or unhoused for their cooperation. There's 2 million people in this county were doing a great job of supporting the public health officials guidelines and supporting all of us in our work. And I would just close by saying that the Board of Supervisors, all five of us, who represent the two million people in this county remain completely committed to funding and appropriating the resources that are  needed to address the homeless population right now under these circumstances so as as Mr. Campos said you'll hear more you'll see changes in the numbers and you'll become aware of more things that we're doing in the future because of the commitment of this county did to make sure that the unhoused are taken care of just like everyone else during this COVID19 crisis.

Campos: Thank you and see you tomorrow for our next briefing.