April 16, 2020 — Heartland Alliance has over 500 participant-facing staff working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis to safeguard the health and well-being of our most vulnerable residents in Chicago and Wisconsin, including the elderly, individuals experiencing homelessness, individuals with significant mental health needs, the medically fragile, as well as immigrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, and those at grave risk of gun violence involvement.
Our participant-facing clinicians, nurses, doctors and social workers are working in 24/7 residential housing programs, homeless shelters, permanent supportive housing programs, street outreach settings, food pantries and grocery stores, as well as Federally Qualified Health Centers.
These teams are seeing every day how challenging it is for our participants to implement the guidance from the CDC and the medical community—to stay at home, to minimize interactions with others, to frequently wash hands and stay six feet from others—when they are living in congregate living environments, or are managing mental health and other barriers to their safety.
Despite these challenges, our teams remain determined to provide access to the information, resources and care that our participants need to be healthy and safe, even when it is hard. They are among the heroes of this pandemic.
Shelters for Unaccompanied Children. Heartland Human Care Services is continuing to provide care and support to children who enter the U.S. alone. Our doctors and nurses have been very closely monitoring the health of our participants and ensuring that employees are monitoring their health status as well. And at the first sign of COVID-like symptoms at one of our shelters, we aggressively moved to obtain and administer tests to 100% of the children in our care and isolate any children with illness. Tests were disappointingly very difficult to obtain.
The results confirmed 37 cases of COVID-19 at one of our shelters, including 28 children who were completely without symptoms. Had we only tested kids with symptoms—as the majority of group facilities are being forced to do without access to testing kits—we would have missed these 28 asymptomatic children and put our other children in jeopardy. By testing 100% of the population in a group setting, a higher number is reported, but we were able to identify all the positive cases, including the invisible asymptomatic cases, so we could isolate the positive cases from the negative ones. That’s how you stop the virus from spreading like wildfire through a group setting.
Knowing is so much better. We are better equipped to care for our participants and to safeguard the well-being of our staff and their families because we administered the tests universally and communicated the results broadly. And we want you to know that all of the children in our care are doing well. We are also grateful to Governor Pritzker, Mayor Lightfoot and their teams for helping to procure the tests for our children. We will continue advocating for testing for other vulnerable populations and the staff who care for them—we believe this is a matter of public health and social justice.
Health and Telehealth Services. Our medical teams continue to provide healthcare access on Chicago’s north, south and west sides—offering vital, integrated healthcare. We are screening and testing for COVID-19 using telehealth services when possible, while expanding outreach and direct engagement of individuals experiencing homelessness and residents of supportive housing developments who are at high risk of contracting and contributing to the community spread of the virus.
Among other critical partnerships, we recently partnered with the Chicago Department of Health and partners at Rush University Medical Center, A Safe Haven and University of Illinois Health to open a 100-bed isolation facility with wraparound services.
Remote Service Delivery. Teams across the Alliance have shifted programming to virtual delivery. This includes delivering legal services to immigrants, psychosocial services in Colombia, case management and gender-based violence and reproductive health services in Chicago, in Iraq, and more. We are conducting ongoing assessments of our participants so we can identify and meet their needs, including minimizing the digital divide and providing emergency supports (such as food, rental assistance and cash supports).
24/7 Residential Care. Our residential services staff are continuing to safeguard the well-being of children, youth and individuals with health and mental health needs across Chicago and Wisconsin. We are continuing our supportive housing services, as well as our nutritional services. Our pantries are still working diligently to provide food for our participants.
READI Chicago. Our outreach workers and coaches are engaging READI Chicago participants daily through mobile platforms to stay connected; we have transitioned cognitive behavioral therapy and professional development groups online; and our staff and participants are working to educate communities about the spread of COVID-19 and to dispel myths.
COVID-19 is a health, humanitarian and economic crisis unlike we have seen in our lifetimes, and Heartland Alliance is committed to doing all we can to provide access to health and healing, safety and justice, and economic opportunity to our participants today and into the future.
In times like this, our teams rely on the positive messages and demonstrations of support from friends and supporters like you. We are incredibly grateful for your partnership.
