Oakland hotels to shelter homeless people
With the goal to stop the spread of Coronavirus, California will provide rooms in hotels for homeless people. Nowadays, more than 100,000 residents live on the streets of California. 393 rooms across two hotels are promised now to shelter some of them. However, there is still room for improvement. 900 hotels could be suitable to guarantee the quarantine of homeless people. The state is working on finding additional beds because most probably the number of infections will tremendously rise the next weeks.
Hotels converted into hospitals
Kike Sarasola (Roommate Hotels in Spain) announced that their offer to the government is, that the hotels can be used for non-emergency health care. Following this example, other hotels in other cities from Spain did the same such as:
This measure is not only carried out by Spaniards. In Germany, hotels will be converted into provisional stations and their cellars will serve for storing useful material. Empty hotels in the Netherlands present themselves as hospitals. The hotelier of Groot Warnsborn in Arnhem and of De Wereld in Wageningen has closed the doors of his hotels now that all bookings have been canceled due to the Coronavirus. It may not be necessary now, but if the need arises, they offer beds for hospital patients.
The refugee hotel
Due to the closure of all hotels in Madrid, the Hotel Mayorazgo remains open to be a refuge for all tourists and people who are not allowed to come back to their homes. However, this action sparked a storm of controversy between hoteliers who want their hotels to remain open and hoteliers who want all the hotels of the country to be closed to avoid spreading the virus.
“Hoteles en acción”
A lot of hotels have expressed an interest in helping with the situation of Coronavirus, but they don’t know how to get started. For that reason, “Hoteles en acción” was created: a platform to collect all the information that the state needs from hotels in order to figure out how to proceed, such as
- How many beds are available
- Are the facilities prepared for the passage of stretchers
- Whether the hotel has a laundry to support hospitals
- The food they can donate
This platform is also a communication tool to contribute to initiatives and proposals to overcome the crisis. In addition to participating, there is a blog available as a platform for different debates and webinars will be created as well to inform people about the current situation.
This crisis highlights that we are all in this together. Professionals in the sector collaborate facing the Coronavirus crisis. We will return to normal and we will do it sooner rather than later if all cooperate. With that in mind, we will get through this period and better times will come in the near future!
