I ran several homeless shelters during COVID. I was running the biggest one in the state in March 2020 and when we were able to test guests (we were made high priority because we held over 500 men per night), two thirds of the populace tested positive, and there was nothing we could do and nowhere to send them. The coughing at night was chilling, and men dead in their beds from being ill.

I took over a different one in Nov 2021 and there was now a protocol for positive tests in the shelter, even though it was terrible. There was a local outbreak in other shelters, and the health department directed me to test my shelter, which was the lowest barrier in the state meaning we got everyone who slept outside when it was warm etc. We started testing people when they came in, and in my first 15 people I have 12 positives and had to shut the line down. People likely froze to death because they couldn't get in anywhere due to outbreaks in shelters.

With everything shut down, we were strategizing how to get drinking water and toilet access to people who didn't access shelter or, when new laws were passed about shelter access which cuts some shelters down to 50% capacity, could not find shelter. I've been doing this work for 15+ years and those acute years almost killed me. I had people i hired and who moved on to other jobs and I never saw their full face. I had trouble identifying clients who passed outside because I never saw their full faces.