The primary focus of any community, co-living or shared housing should be to ensure a healthy environment for all who live there. This has become a trying time for our transitional houses at Uncle Dave’s Housing. We took many measures to reduce the risk of exposure for all our guests. Unfortunately, three of our six houses had guest(s) test positive for Covid. In the first house, the manager was the only one who tested positive for Covid. He was very cooperative and quarantine in his room and luckily no one else in that house was affected by the virus. In another house, when one of our residents first tested positive at the hospital and told them he lived in a group home we were then contacted every day. This resident was sent elsewhere to quarantine so the only hassle, in this case, was answering a laundry list of questions from the Health Department on a daily basis for a couple of weeks. Before we knew it, the Los Angeles Health Department was calling us every day on the status of each and every person living in one of our transitional houses. The County Public Health Department wanted us to fill out a matrix of where each of our guests worked and who they had been in contact with. This was at the beginning of the pandemic and their requests were absurd. They asked a ton of questions that really had no effect on stopping, preventing the further spread of this deadly virus. After we allowed them to send a “Strike Team” to the house to test everyone they left us alone.
Then it happened. 5 of our residents at one house tested Positive! Do you know what the county did after someone tested them positively? They sent them to The Vagabond Motel that had a chain-link fence around it preventing them from leaving. Oh, it’s great as the owner of a group home in that you don’t have to pay for quarantining your residents that catch covid. However, since our residents are low income they were put in a forced quarantine and fed 3 meals a day left at their motel door. They had health care on-site if they weren’t feeling well. Yet when some of my friends that had their own place to live contracted Covid they could unwisely leave their house at their own coalition. Our residents at our low-income transitional housing were forced to stay at the Vagabond Motel until their 2 week quarantine period after testing negative was over. Wow. The inequity of the poor and rich.
The County of Los Angeles Health Department sent a team of at least 5–7 people out to Uncle Dave’s Housing three times to make sure everyone who lived there was tested for COVID. It was very difficult on the House manager as he was unable to get all the guests (that’s what we called the residents at Uncle Dave’s Housing) to be there at the specified time for Covid Testing.
Letter from County of Los Angeles Public Health Department to our wonderful manager Mark clearing our facility for new admissions and transfers. All Health Orders for the control of Covid were rescinded.
The good news is after we complied with all the health department requests and requirements we received the above letter stating we were able to accept new people into the house. Some of the requests by the Health Department included getting fans to circulate the air and lower the rate of contagion. Masks were required to be worn at all times except when eating, showering, and sleeping. Sanitizing stations had already been set up but now it was strictly enforced that everyone washed their hands on a more frequent basis including every time they came into the house.
There are rules that make sense to keep everyone safe from contracting COVID and then there are rules that just don’t make sense to me. I believe it is a good idea to be strict on the cleaning, sanitizing and social distancing in your house. Also, asking someone who has tested positive to quarantine is very essential to prevent further spread of the virus.
You risk a big turnover when the house rules become too strict. It is a balancing of being safe and reasonable while not making the house so uncomfortable to live in.
I highly recommend adding some verbiage in your contract for those living in your house that they must abide by the rules required by your county or city health department. This may include washing your hands upon entering the house, wearing a mask in the common areas, and sanitizing surfaces a few times a day.
Lock Them In!
The fact is as an owner/operator of a house you can NOT force anyone to take a Covid Test nor get vaccinated. Neither can any Government employee of the County health department force a Covid Test or Covid Vaccination on an individual. It would be a violation of our constitutional rights.
Just remember if a tenant/guest tests positive the government can require they quarantine for the necessary amount of time. Usually, 14 days after they test positive for Covid. In our case at Uncle Dave’s Housing, I couldn’t believe they took our guests away to a motel (The Vagabond Motel) and literally locked them up like they were in prison! They literally put a chain-link fence around the motel and would not let anyone leave. They did however feed them 3 meals every day. I would have rather allowed guests to find their own place to quarantine. The only good thing about the motel is that as an owner of a transitional house it did not hit our operating budget.
Everybody wants a safe place to live. In this Pandemic, it has become necessary to enforce some rules for the benefit of the community. You are not going to please everyone all of the time and some people just won’t like it. Then it is their choice if they wish to continue living in Shared Housing. I often tell our managers that this type of community living is not for everyone. As an owner/manager of a group home, you can make your residents follow the rules of the house or kick them out. It is important that everyone understands and agrees on the house rules especially when it affects our health and safety. If someone doesn’t like a rule I tell them they can go get their own place and then you can do what you want. Otherwise, they need to learn to respect the house they live in.
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