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Some struggling to find permanent shelter after recovering from COVID-19

Posted at 9:43 PM, Jul 28, 2020
and last updated 2020-07-29 09:40:08-04

Editor's note:

A Spokesperson for Salus Care has reached out to Fox 4 to clarify that though the Bob Jane Triage Center is a part of their campus, they do not run the actual program.

This is the promise Stuart Bailey says he recently made to himself.

"I told them I'm not going to go back out there in the street," he said.

But the reality is, that's where Bailey may have to go, once he's discharged from a Fort Myers hotel...Where he's been recovering from COVID-19.

He's been staying there as part of program, through Lee county, for people who have the virus, but don't have a home.

Bailey says his story starts at the Bob Janes Triage Center, on the Salus Care property, where he had stayed for a little while. He claims he got kicked out earlier this month for something he didn't do.

"They asked me to leave, so I leave and I been bouncing," Bailey said.

He started feeling sick a few weeks after that.

"I was coughing and my chest was burning," he said.

And later got his COVID-19 diagnosis.

But as he gets closer to his time to leave, he says there just aren't many options for housing help.

"Most of the places are closed due to COVID-19."

Another person we spoke to, Terri Flynn, says she was also staying at the Triage center but had trouble getting back in after being hospitalized for COVID-19.

"I went to the hospital and I was there about a week and when I went to return they said I was no longer welcome there and that my clothes would be on the curb and when I got there that's what happened, my clothes were outside," said Flynn.

After days of struggling, she says recently found shelter at a private home.

"I was definitely homeless, in the woods, homeless as homeless can be, broke," she said.

SalusCare tells Fox 4 that it is their protocol to allow people to return if they can prove they're negative for the virus. A spokesperson says the only reason someone may be turned away is for quote "extenuating circumstances."

We also reached out to Lee county, who says it works to pair people with housing once they are discharged from quarantining in those county-funded hotel rooms.