San Diego County Releases New Data on Hepatitis A Cases

by ZIP Code

C O N T E N T S

New Hep A Data 1

Program for

vehicle dwellers

2

City Homeless

Campsite

3

Directors Report 4

This is Holy

Ground

6

Letter from Gov.

Brow n

7

Infomation 8

Meeting dates 9

News 2 N D I S S U E 2 0 1 7 V O L U M E 3 I S S U E 2

I N T H I S I S S U E

• Hepatitis A Outbreak

• Program for those living

in vehicles

• City Sanction C ampsites

• Directors Report

• Welcome Church in the

Park

• Govenors Letter for

Assymbly Bill 392

The death total in San Diego’s ongoing hepatitis A outbreak reach 19 on October 17, one more than last week, according to a newly-released health depart-ment update.

Data show 81 patients are located in the ZIP code 92101, which in-cludes all of downtown, most of Balboa Park, the San Diego Inter-national Airport and the southern end of Bankers Hill. It’s the largest number of raw cases in the county.

The ZIP code 92020 in El Cajon ranks No. 2 with 29 cases,

followed by 92113, which includes Barrio Logan, Logan Heights, Mountain View and Lincoln Park, with 28 cases.

There have been hepatitis A cases in more than half of the 113 ZIP codes in San Diego County.

Case counts also increased from 490 to 507, according to the

county Health and Human Services Agency. The increases are the latest mileposts in a public health emergency that has grown among the region’s home-less and drug-using residents every week since it was first detected in early March.

While the increases have been relentless, there are reasons, said Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county’s public health officer, to think that the outbreak’s growth may be slowing.

Vaccination has always been the lynchpin of the county's outbreak-fighting strategy. As of last week the county reported that 68,500 hepatitis A vaccinations have been administered since March.

Nearly 100 hand-washing stations and more portable toilets have been installed around the region, while regular sidewalk cleaning is taking place in certain areas.

On Friday, the California Depart-

ment of Public Health declared a statewide public health emergen-cy, a move that allows the state to purchase

additional vaccine doses directly from manufacturers after the state hit the limits of a special free vaccine program run by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While declining to say exactly how many doses the county has on hand, Wooten said she believes that there is enough supply to keep giving shots to those who are at highest risk of infection, including homeless resi-dents, drug users, those with ex-isting liver disease, gay men and those with compromised immune systems.

Anyone outside specified at-risk groups, she added, are now being actively advised to wait due to the constraints on vaccine supply mentioned last week by the state.

The county health department has recently doubled down on its efforts to reach those at risk, with than 500 foot team missions in areas where homeless people gather, in addition to focusing on vaccination clinics at shelters and other nonprofits serving them homeless.

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We welcome the

faithful, the

curious, the

seeker, and the

doubter, for God’s

embrace is wide

and God’s love and

salvation are for

all!

N E W S

Mayor unveils program for San Diego's

homeless living in vehicles A program in Clairemont that provides a safe park-ing area for homeless people living out of their vehicles and offers them assistance to transition to permanent housing will be expanded, city officials and community leaders announced Monday. A similar area will also be opened on city-owned property in Murphy Canyon. The existing lot is operated by the non-profit Dreams for Change at Jewish Family Ser-vice's Joan & Irwin Jacobs Campus on Balboa Ave-nue. The lot provides space for 40 vehicles, serving around 50 to 60 individuals nightly, with an em-phasis on families. Another 20 spaces will be added, paid for by the city an donations to JFS. "Homelessness comes in many forms. Sometimes people are living on the streets, some are sleeping on a friend's couch and some live out of their cars," Mayor Kevin Faulconer said. "In many cases, these folks just need a place to go so they can focus on getting their lives back on track," he said. "These safe parking areas will pro-vide a creative solution for people who just need a temporary reprieve from the streets." The second site, located at a city-owned parking lot near the intersection of Aero Drive and Murphy Canyon Road, will open next Monday, offering 60 parking spaces. Together, the two parking lots will serve more than 200 people each night. "For the majority of the people in the Dreams for Change program, it is their first time being home-less," said Teresa Smith, the organization's CEO. "Most of them have some source of in-come and just need a little assistance to get themselves and their family back on their feet

and into a home." People who register for the parking areas can stay between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m., according to the city. Dreams for Change provides case management and JFS provides food assistance, access to a bath-room and shower facility. In addition, JFS offers participants more comprehensive case manage-ment and services toward self- sufficiency. Organizers said program participants must be working toward securing housing and are screened to ensure the areas remain safe and welcoming. City officials plan to erect three permanent tents later this year and early next year to serve as homeless shelters. Last week, the city opened a 136- space tent camp in Golden Hill to provide a safe area for homeless families, with bathrooms, storage and 24-hour security at the camp in the city's operations yard. The growing number of homeless in the county was already a concern before a hepatitis A out-break raised worries even more. The outbreak, which has killed 18 people and sickened nearly 500 others, has largely affected the homeless and illicit drug users, and critics contend a shortage of shelter space for the homeless exacerbated the outbreak. An annual tally of the area's transient population in January found that 962 homeless people were living out of their vehicles, making up 17 percent of the 5,619 total homeless individuals.

For more information visit:

http://www.dreamsforchange.org/the-safe-parking-program

San Diego’s New City-Sanctioned Campsite Gives

Hope to Women, the Elderly and Youth Mayor Faulconer, Alpha Project Welcome Unsheltered People to New Camp Area That

Provides Safe and Sanitary Living Conditions . By midday on October 14 more than 65 homeless individu-als had moved into a Transitional Camp Area opened by the City of San Diego and operated by nonprofit Alpha Project.

The camp area will provide a clean and sanitary place to stay while ongoing efforts to address the hepatitis A outbreak and construction of three temporary bridge shelters contin-ue. Alpha Project will continue to move people into the camp area over the next several days.

“This camp area will give our most vulnerable residents a temporary reprieve from the harsh conditions they face living on our streets,” said Mayor Kevin L. Faulconer. “This

will be a starting point for a lot of folks to turn their lives around and reach the ultimate goal of permanent housing. It’s also a public-private partnership between the City, Alpha Project and the business community that shows what we can do when we work together toward the shared goal of

reducing homelessness.” Last week Mayor Faulconer announced the parking lot at a City-owned operations yard at 20th and B streets be con-verted into a Transitional Camp Area where homeless

individuals will be allowed to pitch a tent as well as have access to bathrooms, showers, handwashing stations, stor-age for belongings and meals. Upon their arrival this morn-ing, occupants were welcomed with snacks, the opportuni-

ty to get a hepatitis A vaccination, and were given a new tent.

Among the first to check in Monday to the camp were women, families, elderly and disabled individuals.

The Alpha Project will run the camp area with an on-site manager, 24-hour security, and a shuttle service to transport people.

As individuals check in, they must register to be assigned a 13-foot-by-13-foot campsite, with each space able to ac-

commodate two tents and several people. In all, the camp area has about 130 campsites and will have the potential

to accommodate a few hundred individuals. Some of the supplies at the Transitional Camp Area were

donated by Target Corp. in support of Alpha Project.

This short-term Transitional Camp Area will remain open until the three temporary bridge shelters are up and run-

ning in early winter. Those large industrial tent shelters will house about 750 homeless individuals in three locations:

downtown, Barrio Logan and the Midway District. “City staff and the team at Alpha Project have done excel-lent work in the last several days to get this transitional camp area up and running with sanitation and security to

minimize the impact on the Golden Hill community,” said City Councilmember Chris Ward, Chair of the City’s Select Committee on Homelessness. “With thousands of unshel-tered homeless at risk on our streets and in our alleys and canyons, this is an important step forward for hundreds in

need and hopefully a model for transitioning people out of harm’s way and into the pipeline for permanent shelter.” Bridge shelters, funded in part by the philanthropic support of business leaders Peter Seidler and Dan Shea, are an inno-

vative approach that reflect best practices in serving the most vulnerable members of the homeless population. They will serve as a crucial transition point where housing naviga-tors will work with men and women without shelter to find them a permanent housing placement.

CONTACT: Greg Block at 619-227-3752

or gsblock@sandiego.gov

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This is Holy ground and we are God’s Holy People

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Sunday - October 22, 2017

Sunday - November 26, 2017

Sunday - December 24, 2017

Sunday - January 28, 2018

Sunday - February 25, 2018

All meetings of the Welcome Church

of El Cajon take place in Wells Park

located at 1199 E Madison Avenue, El

Cajon, CA 92021

Upcoming Welcome Church El Cajon Meeting Dates

490 Farragut Circle El Cajon, CA 92020 Phone: (619)212-6073 Email: wctraveler12 @ gmail.com Proclaiming the hope and love of a gracious God to all people and especially to those experiencing homelessness.

Proclaiming the hope and love of a gracious God to all people

and especially to those experiencing homelessness. The

Welcome Church in Wells Park is a place where everyone is

welcome to participate in a short worship service that includes

communion. Everyone is welcomed and accepted for who they

are—No exceptions! People from the street; people from

“housed churches”; people from no church; people who are

poor or marginalized; or people who just happen to be in the

park and decide to drop in. It is a non-denominational and

ecumenical gathering. It is the Church with a capital ‘C’, ‘God’s

house’. We meet at 3 pm on the 4th Sunday of the month. The

service is simple. We gather; we pray; we sing; we pass the

peace; we receive Holy Communion; we share a picnic lunch.

We share the great fellowship of the Spirit – the same treas-

ured fellowship that all experience when meeting in “housed”

congregations. All receive the precious gift which none of us

has earned, but which is given freely to all – a place at the

Lord’s Table.

https://www.facebook.com/The-Welcome-Church-of-El-Cajon-248275668660855/

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