December 10, 2020
Coco Auerswald, a faculty affiliate of ISSI's Berkeley Center for Social Medicine, is quoted in this new article in The Oaklandside detailing how critical services providing the unhoused with refuge from the cold have been severely limited due to COVID-19 safety concerns. Auswald states that cities and counties don’t have to sacrifice winter shelter altogether just because they can’t safely establish communal sites. "'Putting people in danger, or leaving them in danger—those can’t be our only options,” Auerswald said. “I think we need to have more temporary housing that has a door and a bathroom. And to figure out ways to use city land for temporary shelters that are appropriate for human beings.'"