On April 20, Supervisor Matt Haney, hosted a virtual press conference and urged leaders to speak out against the lack of widespread testing in high-risk places like homeless shelters and the need for frontline workers in the homeless response system to earn hazardous pay. Currently, the Department of Public Health is providing testing for symptomatic individuals only. Supervisor Haney believes that in order to prevent the spread of the virus, there must be proactive testing in vulnerable communities where dozens of residents have to share a restroom and other common areas.
Our very own Sherilyn Adams was amongst one of those leaders who advocated for incentive pay for frontline workers who are keeping services open as well as housing and shelters running — all while exposing themselves and their families to the virus. And while we’re currently able to provide a time and a half pay for our frontline staff, we aren’t sure how long we’ll be able to do this.
“It is important that we recognize that they are doing that at greater risk to themselves with greater challenges during this shelter-in-place and kids are not in school, our executive director, Sherilyn Adams, said. “We want to ensure that we are able to pay our workers and give them additional pay for doing the frontline direct work with clients.”
For more, read the full coverage from KTVU and the San Francisco Examiner.
