The number of emergency shelters for Lexington’s homeless population has grown during the Coronavirus period. Members of the Lexington council’s General Government and Social Services Committee got a report this week.
Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention Director Polly Ruddick said at the end of May there were 21 temporary shelters, up from five shelters. Ruddick said there has also been about a 50% increase in demand for services. “We’ve spread people out. We’ve moved them to new temporary shelter locations. We moved high risk individuals to separate facilities. Changed basically all the food distribution, was immediately changed to to-go meals. We changed how day centers operated, how our shower facilities, we added shower facilities, we added restrooms,” said Ruddick.
Ruddick noted the busing of homeless people into Lexington from surrounding areas was stopped. She told committee members there had been three confirmed cases of COVID-19 within the homeless community.? The director of homelessness services said there’s been increased emotional stress. “Mental health needs ticked up. The anxiety of this as you can imagine, people sitting in shelters for days and days and days. So, we had to figure out a way to provide a lot more mental health and do tele-health inside shelters which takes technology,” explained Ruddick.
Ruddick also reported on homeless encampments. She said the cleaning and removal of these camps had been suspended due to COVID-19. Her report indicated 20 active camps on public property and another 41 on private property. Ruddick said each camp typically consist of two to four people.
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