Effort to administer COVID vaccine to homeless is fraught with obstacles

Lance Curtis, 65, receives a COVID-19 vaccination from registered nurse Katherine Han at Los Angeles Christian Health Centers — Joshua House Clinic on Winston Street in the skid row area of downtown Los Angeles.(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

by: Los Angeles Times

Posted: Feb 15, 2021 / 06:56 AM PST

Updated: Feb 15, 2021 / 06:56 AM PST

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For Lance Curtis, the journey to receive the COVID-19 vaccine began with a phone call from Los Angeles Christian Health Centers.

Doctors and nurses had culled a list of nearly 900 homeless people they wanted to vaccinate. Their outreach workers walked the streets of skid row preaching the gospel of Moderna’s two-shot salvation.

And they sought out people in the community’s large shelters to make sure they got pricked.

The goal was to offer a lifeline to one of Los Angeles’ most vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations. But the effort to vaccinate the homeless population and the skid row community, which is just getting underway, is fraught with obstacles.

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