We're all transfixed by the COVID-19 crisis. Seeing the trajectories of Italy and Spain and others, it's clear that isolation is essential before the virus explodes exponentially and pushes the health system beyond its ability to cope.

As many have said, anyone who doesn't appear to be sick should nevertheless isolate themselves from the potential to catch the virus, and from the potential to transmit the virus after having caught, but while still being asymptomatic. This preemptive isolation regime for the homeless is what's referred to here. (Isolation after becoming ill is another matter.)

Homeless services, in particular, are in a double-bind on this issue: they are usually more or less centralised services around which homeless people congregate, but this is contrary to the preemptive isolating that we must be doing now before getting sick. 

Moreover, the homeless community is a very high-risk group for bad COVID-19 outcomes. Fairly recent, novel, far less deadly viruses have massively over-represented vulnerable groups among their dead by as much as six times — and COVID-19 is much more deadly than any of those. The results of COVID-19 on the homeless community could be devastating that I struggle to bring myself to articulate. Homeless services need to urgently rearrange their practices for now so that, rather than have the homeless congregate in institutions, services push their services to homeless people who are residing off-site, where those clients are able to isolate themselves. This way the homeless could contribute to the breaking of the chain of infection while protect themselves, other homeless people, and the broader community.

In this moment, unprecedented actions are being taken to address the virus, such as Italy suspending financial obligations. We need to think along similarly unprecedented lines.

Governments need to act as if running a war-time command-economy. If there are any emergency powers available to any levels of Australian government that would enable them to, for example, commandeer hotel rooms to allow homeless people to isolate themselves from the virus like the rest of us, this needs to be done urgently.

This is probably especially practical at a time when it is likely that there is very little tourism.

Also, the NSW department of Family & Community Services (FaCS) ordinarily offers 28 days of access to "temporary accommodation" (TA) in motels & hotels to the homeless. Accommodation for the purpose of isolating from COVID-19 risk could be provided rapidly by extending this scheme with the usual limits removed.

It would be important to coordinate these kinds of measures with community services to make sure isolated homeless people are still served while isolated. Such services could also play a role in encouraging people to remain isolated at this time.

Volunteers and paid staff who operate in the community-services sector could then push their services out to these isolated homeless people, minimising contact between one another in the process, as we should all be doing at this time, no matter how healthy or sick, no matter how comfortable or deprived we might be.

Sorry, I don't have any more specifics at this time. I volunteer with homeless people and feel terrible about having to withdraw from that, but I just don't see that congregating as usual with a bit of extra hand-washing at this stage is going to achieve more good than harm, and simply shutting the doors of such services is also not an option. A third way for serving the homeless community is urgently needed right now, and although I don't know if or how this is possible, the matter is so urgent that I feel that I at least need to start a conversation about it, one that might prompt people with more expertise in these matters, such those with legal & community services expertise, to help advance the aims herein in a more coherent and targeted way.