Getting Vaccines To Portland's Houseless Community

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Getting Vaccines To Portland's Houseless Community

    With the number of new COVID cases a day starting to decrease, and more and more vaccinations starting to get out at a quick rate, there finally seems to be some hope for getting back to life the way it was before the pandemic. All this aside there are still many obstacles that we as a society need to overcome before we can get to that point. One of those obstacles is for sure being able to get vaccinations to Portland's entire houseless community. Which according to an article by KGW, they estimated a count of 4,015 people who are experiencing houselessness in 2019. That same article also said that based off of economic hardships related to the pandemic, they estimated that there would be an increase of 40-45% nationwide by the end of 2020. That is a lot of people who lack the resources needed in order to get the vaccine without some additional help. 

    The houseless community has started to get this help through free vaccine clinics administering at an impressive rate. 12,000 doses administered daily according to an article about the efforts being made to help the community. This doesn't come without its fair share of issues though, as mentioned by a medical professional in the same article. A lot of the members of the houseless community not only have issue accessing healthcare, but it is mentally and emotionally taxing to deal with healthcare professionals. Which makes it all the more difficult to give them the help they need during this extremely trying time. 


Want to find a way to help? Click here to access a local non profit helping to support the community during the COVID-19 crisis.


Published By: Dylan Hockert, Student at Portland State University

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