The uncounted: People who are homeless are invisible victims of Covid-19
People who are homeless make shelters on the sidewalk in Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles in March 2020.
APU GOMES/AFP via Getty Images
LOS ANGELES — They are the invisible victims of Covid-19, marginalized not just in life, but also in death.
Despite the extraordinarily detailed statistics that parse the ages, races, and comorbidities of the nation’s more than 500,000 Covid deaths, no one seems to have any idea how many homeless people have died.
One attempt to track all U.S. Covid-19 homeless deaths through official records turned up just 373. “It’s absolutely a vast undercount,” said Katherine Cavanaugh, a consumer advocate with the National Health Care for the Homeless Council. “Housing status is not on any major Covid dashboard.”