During COVID-19, many people who were homeless lived in Chicago-area hotels Here s what was learned msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
When COVID-19 halted the world a little more than a year ago, one group of people appeared to be particularly vulnerable to this new, little-understood coronavirus: the homeless.
Often suffering from poor health and packed head-to-foot in shelters â known as congregate housing â homeless individuals were one of several groups of people who, it was feared, would be decimated by the spread of COVID-19.
While those experiencing homelessness did suffer COVIDâs aggressive spread initially, a silver lining has emerged out of the deadly pandemic. Hotels, abandoned by business travelers and tourists, were used to house people who would otherwise be sleeping in congregate shelters or on pads arranged on the floor of a church basement. Social service agencies, doctors and those who stayed in the hotels are now calling it a game-changing model for how to stabilize people experiencing homelessness and get them into permanent housing and off the street for good.