La Quinta Inn will serve as isolation site for homeless without COVID-19 symptoms

Thursday, April 23, 2020

The city and county officials are setting up a new isolation site at the 113-bed LaQuinta Inn on University Avenue for homeless individuals who appear to be healthy, Berkeley’s city manager reported.

Homeless people who have no symptoms and have not tested positive for COVID-19 will have access to the property, according to an email City Manager Dee Williams-Ridley sent to Berkeley City Council members shortly before 7 p.m. about the city’s recent coronavirus efforts. The hotel is located at 920 University Ave., between Seventh and Eighth streets in West Berkeley.

This hotel would be made available for homeless people in Alameda County, with an emphasis on Berkeley, Williams-Ridley wrote. The County will lease and pay for the hotel and the City of Berkeley will help support operations and medical intake.

The new site will operate under the moniker “North County Safer Ground” as part of the state’s Project Roomkey initiative to open thousands of hotel rooms to medically vulnerable people who have no permanent housing. The county effort launched in early April with two Oakland hotels: Operation Comfort for unsheltered people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and Operation Safer Ground for those considered high risk.

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