testing of residents and staff members, and prompt isolation of symptomatic [individuals] or residents with confirmed disease are needed to prevent further transmission in homeless shelters."Cities are struggling with the challenges posed by COVID-19 in their homeless populations.In some cases, local authorities are trying to find alternatives to homeless shelters, such as hotel and motel rooms for housing these individuals.In cases where individual housing units are unavailable, CDC guidance advises against clearing homeless encampments when COVID-19 is spreading in the community."Clearing encampments can cause people to disperse throughout the community and break connections with service providers," the CDC cautions."This increases the potential for infectious disease spread."However, despite such advice, newspapers in Denver and Philadelphia have reported that officials have shut large homeless encampments in those cities.
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Joan Stephenson (2020) studied this question.