Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan on helping the homeless, unemployed during the crisis

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan joins us for her weekly check-in on the coronavirus outbreak.

This is an edited transcript of Bill Radke's conversation with Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan.

Radke: I feel like these are War Room briefings and every week I ask you how the fight is going. What is the latest?

Durkan: So I think we saw some positive news earlier this week when the researchers said that the actions we've taken together as a community, state, county, and cities working together have slowed the transmission of the virus significantly. But we're far from out of the woods.

We know that we have to keep these restrictions in place -- and these really difficult conditions for workers and small businesses and families -- longer if we want to beat this virus,

How are Seattle hospitals holding up as far as beds, ventilators, equipment?

So right now they are stable, but they are working enormously hard. They're seeing more people admitted for COVID symptoms and COVID positive tests than they've seen before. The modeling shows that we will have a surge in the next two to three weeks. And that's if we continue to do everything that we're doing. If people start to get complacent, and think that they can start together again, or change their habits, then the uptick will happen very quickly, and we could overwhelm the hospitals. So while they're stable, we also know that there's going to be a surge.

The governor's working very hard to understand the capacity for every hospital in the region. And that includes both beds, ICUs, ventilators, and staff, because the staff has been working under these conditions now for a month. They are heroes. I mean, the word sometimes is used tritely, but I gotta tell you, those people are heroes. They are showing up under really difficult conditions. They are not given all the tools and resources they need. And yet they're really there on the frontlines trying to help patients and families.

Are they getting hazard pay? Or will they?

I don't know what the pay structure is for hospitals. And frankly, I haven't heard a single doctor or nurse, ask that. What they want is the personal protection equipment they need to keep them safe. They want to be able to know that they're not bringing disease home to their families. And they want to know that when it gets really hard, that this community has done everything we can do to help them in their jobs.

I think the governor posed it in a really powerful way last weekend when he said, if you have any questions, put a picture of a nurse, or an emergency room doctor, or someone who's lost a loved one on your front door and ask yourself, is it really worth their life for me to walk out today?

Governor Inslee says it's highly likely he will extend his stay at home order beyond Monday. (Ed. note: Inslee has now extended the Stay Home order through May 4.) How long a shutdown are you planning for in the city of Seattle?

We're going to go based on what the science and the data are telling us on how well we've been able to slow the transmission of this virus. So that if we take some of the restrictions off, we won't see an uptick that could overwhelm our healthcare system. Everyone that I've talked to said that that will be at least a period of a month or more, and so we're planning for multiple month contingencies if we need that.

Sarah in Ballard: Our homeless neighbors haven't been able to get into shelter, especially those who have histories of mental health, drug addiction, perhaps violent past. I heard yesterday on the call with Health Care for the Homeless, that 10 people have been denied isolation and quarantine. What is the city doing to really safeguard everyone from the risk of a huge outbreak in the homeless population?

We have done a number of steps together with the county to stand up literally the capacity to do over 1000 beds for people experiencing homelessness or others -- for isolation, quarantine. And the city has also created new shelter capacity. Unfortunately, we needed that capacity to de-densify existing shelter so that we could keep people at a safe distance and have used that new capacity to bring those people to keep them more safely apart.

Yesterday, I had other conversations with the head of FEMA here, to say that we needed to have some capacity to have both mass sheltering for people -- to bring them inside, to give them adequate food, but also medical assessments. We will continue to work on that. I will look at your listener's statement that Health Care for the Homeless has said that people were declined quarantine because that is not consistent with what I know the process set up by the county is. But we'll look at that very seriously.

How many of those shelters are going to stay open after the pandemic passes?

No one can predict what's going to happen after this pandemic passes I think in any city in America, let alone Seattle. We don't know how long it's going to last, what its impacts will be on city revenues, and what our ability to provide basic city services or other services will be. We also don't know what the next round of stimulus will be from the federal government and whether they will fill some of those gaps for cities like Seattle. Because we were one of the first hit. We've been in this the longest. We shut down our businesses sooner than others did. And the financial impacts are being felt across this region -- to our workers, to our small businesses, but also to the city. Our revenues will be significantly down and we will have to adjust how and where we can spend our monies.

Sally in Greenwood: About two weeks ago, tents got set up across the street from my building with someone living in it. And I tried calling all sorts of places to see who and where to get help. I didn't get any response. And there's a second tent set up there now this morning with several more people in there, and of course, I'm just so concerned about them living too close and being unsheltered during this time. How do we get these new tent camp people the help that they need?

Our navigation team, which is the first line of outreach to the homeless community has been shifted to do outreach work to really give people both information on where there may be shelter available, give them hygiene kits. And so we continue to work with that on the individual basis. But we're also working very hard asking the federal government and the state government to give us the capacity to do some mass sheltering for people to keep them safe.

And what all of us in Seattle have seen over the years -- various hurricanes hit parts of the country, where FEMA can come in and provide housing and shelter for thousands of people -- and we're hoping that they can do something like that here. We don't have that yet. But we're working very hard to get it.

People are not getting evicted right now for failure to pay rent, correct?

That's correct. One of the first things we put in place was a moratorium on evictions, for residential, and for any small business or nonprofit. We know that the rent amounts are continuing to increase and we've been in conversations with the governor on whether we can put any kind of freeze on rent increases or any penalties that are associated with not paying rent.

The first thing we want to do is put money in the pockets of people. And the federal stimulus is one thing, but getting that and unemployment actually in people's bank accounts or pockets to use, is a second thing. So we've been working with the state to see if there's anything we can do to help them speed up the process so that employment security can actually get that money to people. It is hard for people. It's why we really started at the outset of this to identify what city funds we could convert to direct aid, and partnered with folks like Safeway to give grocery vouchers directly to people.

The first round of checks are going out to micro businesses that are really hurt by this time, small businesses. So I know that everybody is facing this. And then we see it on the other end, too. I was contacted by some folks who, older couple who have a couple of rental homes on Beacon Hill -- they're older, community of color -- and if they don't get paid, then they're in trouble. So all of the system has to be fixed and we've got to build some resiliency for everybody. How we get through this is going to matter.

Well as it is you don't have to pay your rent right now, but it's not rent forgiveness, right? You will owe that back rent eventually.

That's correct. The Constitution prohibits governments from breaking individual contracts. But what we can do is first, make sure nobody gets evicted, and they can stay in their home. We're making sure no power, light or anything's cut off. And then we've got to get systems in place to actually get people the resources they need to to make it through this but also to come out of this.

Zachary in Ballard: I'm calling in regards to the farmers markets being closed. I just feel like the ratio of vendors and attendees to monitor the flow of patrons into the markets is a higher ratio than any corporate grocery store. So I want to know why the markets in Seattle specifically even though they've been open for the rest of the country have been closed?

We've been looking and working with the state about what we can do with farmers markets. There's actually a number of jurisdictions around the country that have been a flat prohibition. We're trying to find a safe way that we can open them. Obviously, we do not want people gathering unless they absolutely need to. But we also know that farmers markets can be a source of really important food security, particularly fresh foods as we move into spring and summer. So we're looking at a range of options in conjunction with the State Department of Health and Seattle King County Public Health. So we have to meet the public health requirements, but also try to find ways to make programs like that work.

Anonymous in Central District: I'm an RN, I have a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. I've been a nurse for 12 years. I work in a facility that has a contract with King County to provide acute detoxification services for people who do not have insurance or have Medicaid. The service I provide is considered emergent. We do not have enough PPE. The conditions inside the facility do not really allow for adequate social distancing when people are out in the milieu so we've shut down some beds to try to provide more space in between clients. How are you going to address people who have active addiction and need emergent services for detox, if our facility is closed down because of an outbreak? What is the directive for our facility?

So first, let me just say thank you for the work she's doing. And it points out, you know, we are all COVID all the time, it seems and we forget that we had so many challenges in our community that we had to meet before that, that continue unabated. And the kind of services provided in those facilities are absolutely more critical today than they were a month ago before COVID came.

We've had discussions with the county and with the state -- the lack of PPE has been a significant challenge for us, to the point where the city itself was trying to reach out through the State Medical Association to ask any facility -- doctor's facility, clinic, dentist office that was closed -- that if they had PPE, they could bring it to warehouse that we would get it into the system to distribute it. But we also know that as we get more, it's not just our doctors and nurses that need it. It's other facilities that are addressing those very acute patients. And we're trying to create, at the statewide level, working with the State Department of Health and Seattle King County Public Health, a more robust triage system so we can get the medical equipment and supplies needed and also try to create less density in those facilities. It's a significant challenge and, you know, I will be honest that the triage at this point has been trying to get as much as we can to protect the frontline health care workers and then move down that. And we're hoping to be able to do more.

The primary distributor of that is at the state level and then through the county, but the city is doing everything it can to help on that front. So I can't promise immediate relief, but know we are trying.

Jan in Seattle: My question is about the 250-bed hospital down at Century Link which is supposed to be for non-COVID patients. What is the testing going to be like to make sure that no asymptomatic people who are carrying the virus, either staff or patients, are there?

I was down meeting with the field hospital general yesterday, asking some of those same questions and they're in the process of determining how they do that kind of testing for patients that are admitted. At the same time, they're trying to work with the local hospitals to make sure that they can be integrated into the care they need and are providing a service that's really needed for our hospitals to deal with the patients they have.

An example of that is, our hospitals are having a hard time discharging patients, because there's no intermediate place that we'll accept them at this stage because people are overtaxed. Many of those are non-COVID patients, but they need to be discharged from the hospital so the hospital has more capacity. We hope to be able to see those patients move, and that there will be some testing available both at the hospital and field hospital level. But the final plans for that have not yet been produced. They're looking at a number of avenues to make sure that as they move people into that hospital setting, they can keep them and the healthcare workers safe.

But I will caveat that -- most of the scientists tell us that moving through this pandemic, even with the steps we have taken, we should expect that about at least 30% of the people of this region will contract the virus. And so we know that it's going to be in any kind of setting, which is all the more reason why we need the governor to continue the stay home order. Because the minute we start changing our practices, this virus could accelerate. And we've seen in New York City, how catastrophic that is for a city.

Buckley in Seattle: I'm calling about taxi drivers. Most of them have been serving the needs of the community for a long time. I was wondering if there is any financial help that can be provided to taxi drivers who have been really suffering a lot of financial hardship due to the COVID-19. And I was just wondering if the city has any kind of support for the drivers financially?

All the programs we have are open to a range of people, but in terms of drivers themselves, different taxi companies and different driving companies have, either they're classified as employees, but sometimes they're not even employees, they're independent contractors or gig workers. I really have to give a lot of thanks to our federal delegation, both Senator [Maria] Cantwell and Senator [Patty] Murray and Rep. Pramila Jayapal and the other people in the delegation because they fought very hard to extend the unemployment benefits, not just to employees who suffered, but to those people who didn't have employee status. So that relief will be coming. It will be coming through the state Employment Security Department. They put out a message this week saying that they're working very hard to get people what they need to sign up.

But I would go to esd.wa.gov. They put out an information packet that's available to people so that you can start filling out the application today. They're not ready to process them yet, I don't think but hopefully they will have it very soon.

Shawn in Bellingham: I'm a homeless veteran, and I live in an RV and being a veteran or allowed to stay in national parks, campgrounds for free because of your veteran status. So I'm not an addict. I'm not an alcoholic anymore. I've been sober for years, but I live in an RV with my dog. And so for the past six weeks, I have been all over the Pacific Northwest, trying to find a spot that's -- I practice social distancing -- as well as out of the way in law enforcement, FEMA, the military, everybody's trying to combat this virus. Everywhere that we have landed, we've been shuffled and moved. Every area that was open to us has now been closed. There is a population out here that's been marginalized for years. And now because of the lack of investment in this subculture, this is going to become a very acute problem. And there are no answers for us. We're just as frightened as everyone else is. We don't want to infect anyone. I empathize with the woman that has tents coming up across the street from her building. However, where do you expect these people to go?

Thank you first for your service. And I'm very sorry that after your service to your nation that you find yourself in that situation.

I spoke again, yesterday when I was [unintelligible] the field hospital, I asked what kind of services that were available, particularly for veterans experiencing homelessness. We will try to get some information on that that we can push out to people or connections for that. There's a great need for that, and there were a number of programs both here locally and nationally on that issue, but it did not meet the need. And I'm not going to pretend to you that it did meet the need.

We are looking to see if we can ramp up some services using some of the veterans benefits that they have that are not associated with FEMA. And I know that Governor Inslee has been asking that same question. So I'm terribly sorry I don't have an answer for you. But I can promise you we continue to push it. And hopefully we'll have something available at different places in the state for veterans to seek help.

I'm curious about just you personally, because this is affecting all of us personally, as well as professionally. How are you getting through it yourself?

I will tell you that this has been a great challenge on every front for all of us. You know, there's both the stress and uncertainty we all have because we don't know what the course of this virus will be. We don't know what impact it will have on our individual health or our family's health. And on top of that, we don't know how our city is going to come out of it.

So I will admit that it is incredibly challenging. But every time I start to get tired, I think of those emergency room doctors, or the people who are cleaning the hospitals or the staff throughout Seattle that is working double time to bring people inside. We have someone from our Human Services Department that couldn't get someone to staff one of the shelters we stood up, so she herself spent the night there.

So I continue to be inspired and energized by all of the people who are doing exactly what they can to help us all through this. And so it's hard, I worry about my family. I worry about my city. But we're gonna get through it. It's gonna be hard. It's gonna take a toll. But we'll come out and we'll come out stronger if we all stick together.