Byrne and Colleagues Develop Web App to Help Local Communities Estimate COVID-19 Needs for Homeless Population
Following his recent report on the impact of COVID-19 on the homeless population, BUSSW professor Tom Byrne and co-authors Dennis P. Culhane, Dan Treglia, & Ken Steif from the University of Pennsylvania, and Randall Kuhn from UCLA, have developed a web application based on their model to allow local communities to estimate need based on their particular local circumstances.
According to the report, which includes a county-by-county breakdown of projected regional impact, there is an immediate need for 400,000 additional emergency accommodation beds nationwide to manage the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the homeless population. Byrne and his colleagues make several urgent recommendations, including procurement of new emergency housing arrangements or reconfiguration of existing shelter facilities to accommodate social distancing, as well as close collaboration among government agencies.
The dashboard provides information to inform planning and response efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic among persons experiencing homelessness in the United States — at both the national and Continuum of Care (CoC) level:
- Estimated size of the single adult homeless population, to provide a baseline understanding of scope of potential COVID-19 related impact and needs
- Potential impact of COVID-19 on the single homeless population, including number of infections, number of hospitalizations, number of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admissions and number of fatalities
- Capacity needed to provide emergency accommodation to the single adult homeless population
Since the report was published on March 25, policymakers, providers and local officials across the country have contacted the team and used the report to guide their response efforts.
The web app will be updated regularly as new data become available with alerts made available on Twitter.
Please direct comments, suggestions, questions or information about errors to Tom Byrne at tbyrne@bu.edu.