SPOKANE, Wash. — Hope House Women's Shelter in downtown Spokane is experiencing a COVID-19 outbreak. Hope House provides women 18 and older with overnight housing and behavioral health services.
“We just haven’t been able to get women in the shelter," Rae-Lynn Barden, Volunteers of America (VOA) Director of Communications, said.
The shelter has reported 16 cases since Labor Day.
“It really hit our shelter just about two weeks ago," Barden said. "So, we've been under quarantine since around Labor Day.”
Due to the COVID-19 cases at Hope House, the shelter has stopped welcoming women needing shelter for the past two weeks. Volunteers of America's director of communications said they have been turning away two to three women per night.
“We want to make sure we don’t overwhelm staff, and we want to make sure we don’t have another outbreak,” Barden said.
The shelter is limiting capacity to 58 people when they can normally take up to 80. The shelter has helped over 500 women in the last year. Hope House said they will recover from the outbreak soon.
“It's a huge relief to know that we can keep our doors open to services that have been needed in this community for over 20 years," Barden said. "And up until the outbreak, we were pretty much at capacity every night. So we're just hoping to get those numbers back up and take care of women and get them housed.”
Volunteers of America says anyone turned away from Hope House is given options for other shelters they can go to.
“We can refer them out to Catholic Charities or encourage them to go to Women's Hearth and receive services there or the TRAC shelter," Barden said.
Barden says the weather starts to get colder it's important to get the shelter back to full capacity.
“We're very relieved that we will be able to stay open through the winter," Barden said. "And then we still lean on our community partners to fill those gaps when we can't.”
VOA is testing the women staying at the shelter back to full capacity. The shelter will be opening up the shelter for five new people a day starting Friday.
DOWNLOAD THE KREM SMARTPHONE APP
DOWNLOAD FOR IPHONE HERE | DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID HERE
HOW TO ADD THE KREM+ APP TO YOUR STREAMING DEVICE
ROKU: Add the channel from the ROKU store or by searching for KREM in the Channel Store.
Fire TV: Search for "KREM" to find the free app to add to your account. Another option for Fire TV is to have the app delivered directly to your Fire TV through Amazon.