A Small Hand For Miami
The black letters that hang above the door frame read “Camillus House - Hospitality Center” and from the outside, the imposing yellow building could almost pass as a low-income apartment complex.
“Nice place to visit if you’re homeless,” reads a cynical Google review left on the shelter’s page.
Image credit: Nicholas Fuentes
But under the expressway bridges right outside the shelter, tents are lining up.
“Right now, there is a big demand for shelter. People who are living on the streets realize it's very dangerous to be out there,” explained Hilda Fernandez, CEO of Camillus House. “The process to get assistance right now takes a bit longer than it usually would. We want to make sure that we are not exposing the residents who are already here on our campus to infection.”
Prior to entering the shelter, individuals have to be placed in quarantine and isolation hotels until they can get tested. And then, if they test negative, they're able to come into the shelter --- in theory.
“I gotta tell you, shelter capacities are always maxed out,” confided Fernandez. The COVID-19 pandemic has strongly impacted the functioning of homeless shelters, and, with social distancing guidelines imposed by the CDC, already maxed out shelters have seen their housing capacity reduced as preventing the spread of the virus became a necessity.
From intensified cleaning protocols to regular testing and screenings, to retrofitted rooms with reverse pressure and UV lighting, Camillus House has had to rethink the functioning of the shelter and also make space for possible sick individuals to quarantine on site.
“Keeping our clients healthy is our priority. We have almost 400 people here, we cannot afford to have hotspots. The whole place would be a hotspot!”
Additionally, the pandemic put a halt to the rehabilitation and employment programs offered by Camillus House.
“It was frustrating for all the people that are moving towards getting a job or looking for housing, (last April) the community pretty much shut down. A lot of our clients got impacted by the inability to access a job, which of course, is essential for you to move out on your own. So, you know, it's been, it's been kind of crazy,” concluded Fernandez.
But if the shelters are maxed out, what about the people who have been refused government housing?
Image credit: Mihály Köles
Daniela Hernandez, a young activist whose friends like to nickname “Sunny”, decided to take the matter into her own hands. Last May, she decided to open the A.S.H. Foundation, an organization that feeds the homeless of downtown Miami.
“ASH means ‘A Small Hand’,” explained Hernandez. The ASH Foundation first started by handing out food under the I-95 highway bridge by Camillus House.
“If you just go right outside of the shelter, you see hundreds and hundreds [of homeless people]. They are sitting next to each other, side by side, for miles outside of a shelter where they're supposed to be getting taken care of,” said Hernandez. “A lot of them have drug problems, or just don't have the credentials to get into the shelter, or maybe the shelter just doesn't have room. I'm not here to denounce any shelters for the work that they put in. But these people need help, we took the matter into our own hands.”
With the help of donations acquired on social media and other volunteers, Hernandez prepares a hundred meals in her home kitchen every Friday, purchases first necessity items at the Dollar Store and spends her evening distributing the kits to the homeless of multiple neighborhoods of downtown Miami.
“We're in the car for like three hours jumping in and out. And we get into meeting these communities of people we had never seen before. And we're handing off, we’re talking, and we're there actually asking questions,” she stated.
While it’s true that the actions taken by ASH are not the unilateral solution to solve the Miami homeless crisis, it is a first step to giving back to the community. In the future, ASH hopes to be able to partner with larger organizations on events and to implement new infrastructures for the homeless community. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, more young people than ever are deciding to get involved and volunteer with local organizations, showing us that, in a reality where even government-owned shelters are running out of the resources necessary to help, small and localized actions can be the first step to helping the silent victims of the pandemic.
This story was originally written for the University of Miami.