Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday unveiled a plan she known as a countrywide fashion to ease the tension on overburdened hospitals: Rent 1000’s of rooms in empty downtown inns and re-open a shuttered health facility to isolate sufferers who check certain for the coronavirus or were uncovered to any individual who has.
In addition, the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago will supply 400 beds for homeless Chicagoans now dwelling in shut quarters in homeless encampments.
The lodge partnership is remarkable and ordinary. To make it occur, City Hall first brokered an settlement to unravel an 18-month strike via UNITE HERE Local 1 towards Fillmore Hospitality, operator of Hotel One Sixty-Six downtown. That will permit the union’s individuals to go back to paintings to supply meals and house responsibilities services and products for sufferers in isolation on the lodge, previously referred to as the Cambria Chicago Magnificent Mile.
In all, 5 inns are set to supply 1,000 beds via Tuesday and a pair of,000 beds via the tip of the week. Only Hotel One Sixty-Six has signed on to this point; the town is within the technique of finalizing offers with others.
“The men and women who are coming back to work preparing meals and cleaning linens —they are a vital part of the fabric we are shoring up here,” stated Housing Commissioner Marisa Novara.
Karen Kent, president of UNITE HERE Local 1, known as the partnership “bittersweet” as a result of such a lot of of her individuals have misplaced their jobs right through the pandemic.
“At a time when people feel powerless, it is great to be able to feel like there is … something important we can contribute,” Kent stated. “People want to do this to help save lives and help people get healthy and get through this together. While this is a terribly sad moment for many reasons, it’s a wonderful moment that we can work together.”
During a City Hall information convention, Lightfoot pegged the price of simply probably the most inns at $1 million “for a 30-day burn rate.” She didn’t establish the supply of investment at a time when town revenues are plummeting. The overall attainable price of this system stays unclear, relying because it does at the duration and scope of the disaster.
The sufferers will supply no less than some measure of industrial for inns that experience both closed or observed their occupancy charges plummet right through the pandemic.
“These agreements are not just a big deal for our city. In the absence of federal leadership, we have created a model and plan that could be followed by other cities and towns across the nation,” the mayor stated. “We have based our plan on what worked in other countries to respond to immediate medical needs, isolate and quarantine those who are at risk and slow the spread of this virus.”
200 extra rooms at shuttered health facility
Yet every other settlement — with the operators of the shuttered Metro South Medical Center in Blue Island — will unlock 200 extra rooms in that health facility for quarantined COVID-19 sufferers. Those rooms are anticipated to turn into to be had Thursday.
Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady stated the inflow of 1000’s of extra beds will “take the strain off” Chicago-area hospitals and unlock area for the ones sufferers maximum in danger.
And who precisely will the isolation and quarantine amenities serve?
“First, to temporarily house people who are waiting for test results, but can’t return home because of their living situation,” Arwady stated. “Second, we may use them to quarantine high-risk, healthy individuals who can’t be at home because, for example, an ill person might be at home. And thirdly, we will use them to isolate people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19, but who have a mild illness” and will’t go back house.
“We don’t need to need to admit them and use a health facility mattress simply because there isn’t someplace secure for them to stick. “
Arwady stressed out that town staff, led via the Department of Public Health, shall be “on-site, using safe protocols” to supply meals and house responsibilities services and products with visitors “closing in…