Hotel in Phoenix, home to homeless people infected with COVID-19, triples occupancy

The Extend-a-Suites hotel on I-17 and Northern Ave is overwhelmed with the number of COVID-19 patients who have to stay. Irene Snyder from FOX 10 reports.

PHOENIX – While the hospitals in Phoenix are bursting at the seams, it is also a local hotel that houses the homeless infected with COVID-19.

Lovia Primous doesn’t have it easy. The 67-year-old veteran has lost several friends and family members, including his brother, to COVID-19. And just a few months ago he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed.

He lost his job, then his house, and started living in his car.

“In front [going into the] Animal shelter that requires you to have a chest x-ray [tuberculosis] and you need to be screened for COVID and they said my test for COVID was positive. “

A positive test meant he couldn’t stay in the shelter. It was then that he found out about the Extend-a-Suites Hotel, a Maricopa County-leased and Circle the City-operated hotel that provides shelter and health care for the homeless in the fight against COVID-19.

“Come here and sleep and have a hot shower and possibly have a hot meal at least once a day,” Primous said.

The Extend-a-Suites Hotel has been in operation since the beginning of the pandemic. In the fall of 2021, the hotel only had a handful of COVID-19 patients. By Christmas that number had grown to 25 people, and on Saturday, January 8th, nearly 100 people will be checked in at this hotel near Interstate 17 and Northern Avenue.

“We had to go out and aggressively hire staff, increase our staff, our hands serving in the COVID hotel. [We have to] make sure we have enough staff available to meet the need, “said Marty Hames, Circle the City’s communications director.

So that people like Primous have a safe place to heal.

“I just want to thank you. I thank God for you. Make it a lot easier for yourself and maybe one day I can pass it on. This is how I see life. My cup is poured over with joy and love, I would never have dreamed” I would be on this place. “

Many of the homeless they are now helping have already been vaccinated, according to Circle the City. Primous doesn’t have a severe case of COVID-19, but he needed a place to stay while he wasn’t allowed to go to the shelter.

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