Supporting NYC Women's Shelters During COVID-19 | Mike Bloomberg

When you're in the homeless shelter system, the future always feels very uncertain. But layering on a pandemic on top of that now, it's a lot for people to take in. Lenoxville Neighborhood House is an old settlement house. There are education programs, arts programs, wellness, and the shelter is one of those programs. We have 80 clients and our objective is to try to house every single one of those clients and then also care for them while they're with us medically and psychiatrically. They come to us as strong women, but survivors who are still trying to survive. And it's up to us to really support them in that resilience. COVID-19 has affected us in every way imaginable. There's so much fear among the clients. Our lives are all on hold, much more so, I think, if you're in a homeless shelter. One of the programs that Lenoxville Neighborhood House is really known for is our kitchen, which is a teaching kitchen that teaches organizations how to cook meals for large groups of people. A lot of those people are in our own programs. No matter what happens out there, we've got to continue to feed people. That's huge. Being able to be attached to a fund like this right now, it feels like a lifeline in many ways. Knowing that you're out there and supporting our work and helping us to maintain quality and safety during a pandemic, that's huge for us. This is the time to come together and do what we can to support everyone in the city right now.