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Massive effort underway to get Los Angeles homeless into hotels to prevent coronavirus spread

A homeless person sits on a wheelchair under rainy weather on Sunset Blvd., in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles Monday, April 6, 2020. One population is particularly vulnerable to contracting and spreading the coronavirus: the homeless. Officials have vowed repeatedly to get them indoors, but testing shortages and bureaucratic wrangling are making it difficult. Relatively few of California's 150,000 homeless population have been moved into individual quarters. It's unclear how many even have the highly contagious virus. It's a problem playing out nationwide and it's unclear how many may even have coronavirus. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
A homeless person sits on a wheelchair under rainy weather on Sunset Blvd., in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles Monday, April 6, 2020. One population is particularly vulnerable to contracting and spreading the coronavirus: the homeless. Officials have vowed repeatedly to get them indoors, but testing shortages and bureaucratic wrangling are making it difficult. Relatively few of California's 150,000 homeless population have been moved into individual quarters. It's unclear how many even have the highly contagious virus. It's a problem playing out nationwide and it's unclear how many may even have coronavirus. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

By CHRISTOPHER WEBER / The Associated Press 5 min read

LOS ANGELES (AP) – To curb the coronavirus spread, Los Angeles has embarked on a massive effort to bring thousands of homeless people off the streets and into hotels to protect them and others from infection.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week that money from the federal government would help pay for at least 15,000 hotel rooms during the pandemic. But Los Angeles County, with the state’s largest concentration of homeless people at about 60,000, has set its own goal of 15,000 rooms.

“We’re going big in LA,” said Heidi Marston, interim director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. “We based our goal on what the need is here.”

Marston outlined the effort on Wednesday during the daily coronavirus briefing by county health officials.

Coronavirus is spread by coughs and sneezes. Most infected people have mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and other respiratory problems that can be fatal.