Coronavirus Update: Newsom Unveils Housing Plan For California Health Care Workers
SACRAMENTO (CBS SF) -- Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a plan Thursday to assist health care workers who have been forced to remain away from their families because of fears of exposing them to the coronavirus with their expenses.
Newsom said he has heard countless stories of workers who were sleeping in their cars.
"We need to provide the kind of support that is increasing needed for a work force that is deeply stressed-out, deeply stretched," he said during a Thursday coronavirus update. "Families that have been broken apart because their loved ones are spending 24 hours a day, seven days a week, attending to the needs of others and not able to come back home."
"In many cases, sleeping in their cars overnight. In other cases, unwilling to go home because they have been exposed to this virus, to not even want to expose their families back at home and are spending their own money to go to a motel or a hotel overnight...We've heard countless examples of these stories. Instead of continuing to absorb those stories we wanted to do something more and do something better...for those front line heroes."
The governor unveiled a new program linked to a new website -- caltravelstore.com -- to provide vouchers for rooms at 150 hotels and motels all across the state to health care workers.
COMPLETE COVERAGE: CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
"(We will) provide them vouchers and stipends and in many cases for low wage workers ... 100 percent reimbursable ... for costs at hotels all up and down the state," he said, "[There are] over 150 hotels that have been part of a bulk purchasing room program, providing deep discounts to the state. We will extend those deep discounts directly to our caregivers."
Newsom said the new program would allow caregivers "to stay closer to their patients and provide them the opportunity to not worry about being out of pocket or worry about exposing their families or, God forbid, worry another night sleeping in their cars so they can stay closer to the needs in their communities."
He said many workers also face long commutes after working long hours in the local hospitals.
"People are commuting an hour, hour and a half on a good day," Newsom said. "The idea you are doing a 12-hour shift and at 2-3 in the morning have to drive all the way back home only to get right back up and do a double shift early in the morning is not appropriate and it's not right."
Doctor John Schwartzberg -- an infectious disease specialist at UCSF -- said Newsom is making the right call.
"They're getting exposed to the virus. They come home and they've got a family. They're worried about that family and often it's very difficult for them to self isolate in the house," Schwartzberg told KPIX 5. "There may not be enough room. It just may not be possible. That creates tremendous anxiety for the health care workers""
Sutter nurse Jonathan Judy Del Rosario agreed, saying the fear is real.
"There's been the addition of a lot of anxiety that comes with this and a lot of uncertainty. And it really heightens the amount of stress that we feel and we see here at work each and every day," said Del Rosario.
Andria Borba contributed to this report.