The city’s Health and Hospitals system deployed three minibuses on Tuesday to deliver COVID-19 vaccines and other health care to New Yorkers dealing with street homelessness.
Medical personnel set up in Midtown, the Upper West Side, and Washington Heights, where they’ll administer Johnson & Johnson shots. City and state officials said Saturday they’d resume the one-dose option after federal regulators lifted a two-week pause.
“For people that are living on the street in New York City, we want every New Yorker to have the same, equal chance to get vaccinated,” said Dr. Ted Long, the head of the Test & Trace Corps at Health + Hospitals. “We're going to do everything in our power including driving it right up to where you are.”
Each minibus can vaccinate up to 150 people a day. Ridealong health workers can help street homeless individuals with wound care, mental health counseling or referrals. They’ll hand out opioid overdose prevention kits with naloxone—a life-saving drug that can reverse an overdose typically referred to by its brand name Narcan—as well as socks and snacks. Opioid overdose deaths are rising in New York City, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The vaccine gives us the window of opportunity that we can really use to really make a big difference long term for people,” Long said. Anyone can also get tested for COVID-19.
During Tuesday’s launch, outreach teams from the city and other community groups spread the word about the mobile vaccine campaign. Three members clad in bright orange from the Bowery Residents’ Committee stopped by to pick up flyers with information about the drive. By the end of the day, the teams had administered about 50 vaccines, conducted 50 COVID-19 tests, distributed 10 Narcan kits, and provided antibiotics and wound dressings to several patients across the three locations, according to provisional numbers provided by City Hall. Food, water, and hygiene kits were also handed out to dozens of people. Long said the first couple of days are about just letting the community know they’re there.
Medical workers at the registration table sitting in front of an observation area outside the vaccine minibus, where a mobile clinic is set up.
Others who weren’t street homeless stopped by for a COVID test or vaccination after passing by the bus. One of them was David Relyea, whose friend told him about the bus minutes prior.
“When he told me it’s one shot, I ain’t gonna lie, I flew over here,” Relyea, 39, said. “I did not know 15 minutes ago that I was going to get a shot today.”
Near the Midtown site, some experiencing homelessness hadn’t yet heard of the mobile hub or had already received shots through a shelter program. Through late March, about 10% of people living in the city’s shelters had been fully vaccinated. The unhoused present on Tuesday said based on their personal experience being street homeless, the flexible approach is helpful. The new minibus program builds on earlier pop-up sites and other mobile units.
“It would definitely be helpful, because if you look at it, a lot of homeless people go through a lot of sicknesses as it is,” said Henry Hamilton, who got a Johnson & Johnson shot at a shelter. The 38-year-old is currently sleeping on the subway after becoming homeless when he got evicted three years ago.
Henry Hamilton sitting on a sidewalk in Midtown on April 27th, 2021.
“What’s sad is I walk through these streets every day, and I see a lot of homeless people just suffering, and I feel like we don’t have a lot of support that could help us out,” he added. “It’s time for us to get a fair shake.”
A Navy veteran who stays in shelters or sometimes on the subway said the health bus would make it easier to have a place to ask questions and see others get the shot. “If they have a bus, people come, drop by, with no hesitation,” said Willie Jones, 52, who had also been vaccinated through a shelter.
Another man dealing with street homelessness, who goes by Alpha, said he has visited a separate mobile clinic that pops up in Midtown a couple days a week. But when asked about getting vaccinated, he was more focused on finding a cart full of belongings he’d recently lost in the subway system.
“That’s more important to me than the pandemic and everything,” said Alpha, who’s in his 60s. “This is my pandemic.”
The minibuses may help boost the city’s vaccine equity—a challenge since the start of the vaccination campaign. One study submitted for peer-review this month found people of color in New York state would reach 75% coverage with at least one vaccine dose about 21 to 27 days slower than white residents if current uptake disparities continue.
But as the Midtown’s minibus hit the road, officials had also recently deployed additional police officers to assist the city’s Department of Homeless Services (DHS) with community outreach and make office workers feel safe returning to work, according to recent reporting from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. Mayor Bill de Blasio has supported some initiatives to address mental health and homelessness without police, but in Midtown, both police and outreach workers are on the ground. City Hall spokesperson Avery Cohen said the DHS leads outreach in the area, and police can assist.
“The pandemic led to unprecedented displacement and economic insecurity and it takes a full team effort to help us all recover here,” Cohen said.
The minibus vaccine program runs Tuesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at:
- Midtown, 34th Street and Seventh Avenue
- Upper West Side, 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue
- Washington Heights, 177th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
The program has no specific end date, and Long said the initiative is flexible. The minibuses will remain in these three neighborhoods, but the program could move or expand into other neighborhoods and boroughs as needs and interest change.
“For us speed and mobility has been a really big priority,” Long said.
