By Nate Berg, Fast Company, November 11, 2020
In Memphis, 37% of homeless individuals are women, but just 6% of the city’s emergency shelter beds are set aside for them, according to the Memphis-based homeless services provider The Hospitality Hub. It’s a problem the organization has been working for years to address, with plans in motion to open a brand new 32-bed shelter for women in December 2021. But in early 2020, as the coronavirus grew into a global pandemic, the need for the emergency shelter couldn’t wait. So the organization bought a house.
After some quick renovations, the house has become the Hub Hotel, a women-only shelter that’s been providing both housing and services to about 25 women full time since July. “The Hub Hotel is 100% a COVID response,” says Ellen Roberds, principal of the social impact development firm Dragonfly Collective, which handles the Hospitality Hub’s strategic development.
Like many cities, Memphis has been forced by the pandemic to face the disproportionate impact COVID-19 has had on those experiencing homelessness, with high rates of contagion and deaths in shelters. And though some other cities, like Toronto, have been quick to respond by building new housing at a rapid pace, others, like Las Vegas, initially responded by creating an open-air homeless shelter in a parking lot.
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