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Updated April 13th, 2020 at 08:09 IST

Mexico City seeks to help homeless in pandemic

The Mexico City government is sending out teams to help the homeless during the shutdown declared to combat the coronavirus.

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The Mexico City government is sending out teams to help the homeless during the shutdown declared to combat the coronavirus.

Secretary of Inclusion and Social Well being (SIBISO) Almudena Ocejo, explains how the city is coping with this heavily hit segment of the population in Mexico City.

The city has nine million inhabitants, a figure that rises to over 21 million when surrounding suburbs are included.

Because Mexico has tested relatively few people, only about 16,700 tests have been done so far, the federal government is recommending people with non-urgent symptoms simply isolate at home.

Almudena Ocejo, Mexico City's secretary of Social inclusion and Welfare said the city program aims to keep people off the street, while allowing them to survive at home.

Brigades of city workers wearing face masks distribute packages of simple medical supplies like a thermometers, face masks and paracetamol to people who have called in to a government hotline reporting symptoms of COVID-19.

About 2,450 packages have been delivered so far.

Food and monetary support is also made available.

City workers are also calling elderly people living alone to see if they have family support networks; if they don't, they will get visits or phone check-ins.

Other brigades convince the city's 2,000 to 4,000 homeless people to go to shelters, which are expanding.

The city's main shelter had about 600 homeless housed now, near its 700-bed capacity.

Ocejo said she is seeing increased willingness among the homeless to go to shelters, they can't be forced to do so, since the health emergency was declared and social distancing measures imposed in March.

That may be in part because sources of income the homeless rely on in the street, handouts or odd jobs, are drying up as foot traffic decreases rapidly.

The city is thinking of expanding shelter capacity with a new 300-bed tent-like facility in a vacant lot.

The city has set up a WhatsApp message group for city residents to report homeless people who might need help, and reports on that site are also up, Ocejo said.

And in a country where "meals on wheels"efforts are not widespread, city and community-run low-cost kitchens, known as "comedores populares" o "comedores comunitarios," keep churning out about 65,000 meals per day.

Now, most customers bring their own plastic dishes to take food home.

But sit-down service is still available for the homeless.

SIBISO contacts around 65 people a day, of which on a normal day 6 or 7 people decide to go to the hostel.

Monica Laura Segura Diaz, a Coordinator at the Secretary of Inclusion and Social Welfare said that assistance to the homeless population, including food, psychological help and temporary jobs, has turned the pandemic into a fertile ground for the homeless to be reintegrated into society.

As of Sunday, Mexican authorities had confirmed 4,219 cases of COVID-19 and 273 deaths, though they have acknowledged that the unrecorded infection numbers are far higher.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes 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 death.

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Published April 13th, 2020 at 08:09 IST

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