City of Chico continues housing homeless in hotels

As coronavirus cases continue to increase, local hotels are still housing the homeless population through "Project Room Key."

Hospitalized..

As the infection rate keeps climing here at home -- shelters are working to keep an outbreak from spreading among the homeless.

Action news now reporter kristian lopez shows us the safety measures are in place?

Laura cootsona/ executive director jesus center: so far we've had no outbreaks with anyone affiliated with the center.

As coronavirus cases rise - local homeless shelters continue working to protect the most vulnerable.

Laura cootsona: for the most part we are keeping it so it's quite small to socially distance those who are there and allowing them to stay 24/7 to minimize their exposure to the virus.

Kristian stand up (haven't shot this yet): she says those who are exposed to the virus are asked to self isolate in hotel rooms through "project room key."

Cootsona: we have to be careful bringing new people in, we have to be careful about people's exposure and how to test them in advance and isolate them.

Laura cootsona: we've had between two and five in isolation at any given point out of 150 being housed in that program so i consider that significantly low.

The jesus center is providing hundreds of meals a day to those staying in hotels.

Cootsona: we get a list every day of the high risk rooms to protect our staff and the staff who works the hotels knows who is exposed and they are asked to isolate.

The providers really joined early to minimize the impact of the virus, we have all done an effective job, us, the torres shelter and project room key, and we are thankful we did not see any outbreaks.

Project room key is slated to end this month but there is a chance it will be extended.

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