DES MOINES, Iowa — Supervisors in Polk County are telling the public you do not need to be afraid of the gates and fencing at the Iowa State Fairgrounds as it is being used as a private shelter for homeless individuals who test positive for COVID-19.
As of January, there are 700 people without a home in Polk County.
And because of the spread of the coronavirus, a single positive test within that community could spread quickly if proper precautions aren't taken.
The Iowa State Fairgrounds is offering its Youth Inn as a quarantine site for homeless individuals diagnosed with COVID-19.
"When someone's ill and they don't have a place to go, that's an important thing for us to have in our community," said Polk County Continuum of Care Executive Director Angie Arthur.
The Iowa Department of Public Health announced Monday that two more Iowans have died due to the coronavirus, and the state as a whole has 424 total confirmed cases.
More than 6,00 tests have returned negative.
"They have nowhere else to go," Tom Hockensmith with the Polk County Board of Supervisors said. "If there's a positive test in our homeless community, first, it would spread really aggressively in the homeless community if you can't get those folks separated."
But the fence and gates around the complex? That's to keep the public safe, according to Hockensmith.
"We want this to be a private, secure area for folks to recover, and ti's really not to keep people in but it's to keep people out from coming from the outside."
Exact numbers of the amount of people staying at the facility were not immediately provided to Local 5.
