Because of the congregate living arrangements in homeless shelters and correctional and detention facilities, the risk of COVID-19 transmission is higher in these settings compared with the general population. In addition, there is a high prevalence of certain medical conditions associated with severe COVID-19 among people experiencing homelessness and among people who are incarcerated, increasing the risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19 in these populations.
This guidance can be used to inform COVID-19 prevention actions in homeless service sites and correctional and detention facilities and replaces previous CDC guidance documents for these settings.
For Healthcare Professionals: This guidance does not apply to dedicated patient care areas within these settings. Any healthcare workers who provide care in these settings should follow Infection Control Recommendations for Healthcare Personnel.
CDC recommends that homeless service sites and correctional and detention facilities use a combination of COVID-19 Community Levels and facility-specific risks to guide decisions about when to apply specific COVID-19 prevention actions. Assessing the following factors can help decide if additional layers of protection are needed because of facility-specific risks:
The actions facilities can take to help keep their populations safe from COVID-19 can be categorized as prevention strategies for everyday operations and enhanced prevention strategies.
When adding enhanced prevention strategies, facility operators should balance the need for COVID-19 prevention with the impact from reducing access to services and programming. Facilities may not be able to apply all enhanced COVID-19 prevention strategies due to local resource constraints, facility and population characteristics, or other factors. However, they should add as many as feasible, as a multi-layered approach to increase the level of protection against COVID-19. Depending on the risk in different areas of the facility, enhanced prevention strategies can be applied across an entire facility, or can be targeted to a single housing area, wing, or building. Facilities with lower risk tolerance can apply enhanced prevention strategies at any time, even when the COVID-19 Community Level is low or medium.
Encourage and enable staff, volunteers, and residents to stay up to date on COVID-19 vaccination. Where possible, offer the vaccine onsite and support peer outreach to promote vaccination.
Test residents and staff who have been exposed at least five full days after exposure (or sooner, if they develop symptoms) and require them to wear a mask while indoors for 10 full days after exposure, regardless of vaccination status.
Isolate staff, volunteers, and residents who test positive for COVID-19 away from other residents or away from the facility, as applicable, for 10 days since symptoms first appeared or from the date of sample collection for the positive test (if asymptomatic). If the individual has a negative viral test*, isolation can be shortened to be 7 days, as long as symptoms are improving and the individual has been fever-free for 24 hours, the individual was not hospitalized, and the individual does not have a weakened immune system. Note that the isolation period for homeless service sites and correctional and detention facilities is longer than the duration recommended for the general public because of the risk of widespread transmission in dense housing environments and the high prevalence of underlying medical conditions associated with severe COVID-19.
* Either a NAAT (molecular) or antigen test may be used to determine if isolation can be shortened to 7 days. If using a NAAT, a single test must be obtained within 48 hours prior to returning to work (for staff) or ending isolation (for residents). If using an antigen test, two negative tests must be obtained, one no sooner than day 5 and the second 48 hours later.
Effective treatments are now widely available and must be started within a few days after symptoms develop to be effective. Support timely treatment for those eligible; facilities without onsite healthcare capacity should plan to ensure timely access to care offsite.
Quarantine (separating and restricting the movement of people who were exposed to a contagious disease to prevent further transmission in case they become sick) for COVID-19 is no longer recommended for the general public. In shelters and correctional and detention facilities, quarantine can be very disruptive to the daily lives of residents because of the limitations it places on access to programming, recreation, in-person visitation, in-person learning, and other services. However, because of the potential for rapid, widespread transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in these settings, some facilities may prefer to continue implementing quarantine protocols for residents, staff, and/or volunteers who have been exposed to someone with COVID-19. Facilities can base their quarantine policy on their risk tolerance, including factors such as the health of their staff and resident populations and the impact of quarantine on mental health and staffing coverage.
Facilities that choose to implement quarantine can consider a range of approaches to balance their infection control and operational needs and the mental health needs of their residents and staff. Facilities may shift between quarantine approaches to adapt to changes in disease severity and transmissibility of different SARS-CoV-2 variants, or to respond to staffing and space shortages during case surges.
Considerations for facilities implementing quarantine include the following:
The types of personal protective equipment (PPE) and source control recommended in homeless services sites and correctional and detention facilities are detailed below.
If not already in place, employers should establish a respiratory protection program, as appropriate, to ensure that staff members are fit-tested, medically cleared, and trained for any respiratory protection they will need within the scope of their responsibilities. Residents may also be considered for enrollment in a respiratory protection program depending on work-related exposure risk. For example, residents working in an environment where they may be exposed to COVID-19, such as in a COVID-19 medical isolation unit, would be considered for enrollment due to occupational risk. For more details, see the OSHA Respiratory Protection Standard
See Types of Masks and Respirators for a full list of NIOSH-approved and international respirators.
People who have been exposed can be identified in two ways:
See recommendations for Investigating a COVID-19 Case.
Case investigations can prioritize identification of close contacts who are more likely to get very sick from COVID-19, so that they can be referred to a healthcare provider to determine eligibility for treatment if they test positive for COVID-19.
Location-based contact tracing may be preferable in homeless service sites and correctional and detention facilities where traditional person-based contact tracing is ineffective because of crowding, mixing of residents and staff, difficulty ascertaining close contacts, and residents’ movements in and out of the facility. Location-based contact tracing identifies people with recent known or potential exposure based on whether they spent time in the same areas as a person with COVID-19 during the time the infected person was considered infectious. The infectious period is considered to be two days prior to onset of any symptoms, or two days prior to the positive test if they do not have symptoms, through the end of isolation. This process can help identify additional facilities (or portions of facilities) that might need investigation and testing. Examples of how to conduct location-based contact tracing include:
For sites/areas of a facility that have been identified in location-based contact tracing, consider conducting location-based testing.
If any additional cases are identified, facilities should consider adding enhanced prevention strategies.
Health departments should ensure that they are connected with organizations that serve people experiencing sheltered and unsheltered homelessness. Consider designating a staff member to be the point of contact for COVID-19 prevention coordination with homeless service organizations and incorporating housing or homelessness status into data collection to support timely follow-up for cases among people experiencing homelessness.
Depending on resources and staff and volunteer availability, non-congregate housing options (such as hotels/motels) with individual rooms should be considered. Partners should plan for how to connect clients to housing opportunities after they have completed their stay in these temporary sites.
In environments where the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission is higher and safety and security considerations allow, residents should be offered masks or respirators providing the same level of protection as those provided to staff in a similar environment.
Learn More
To receive email updates about COVID-19, enter your email address:
We take your privacy seriously. You can review and change the way we collect information below.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Cookies used to make website functionality more relevant to you. These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests.
Cookies used to track the effectiveness of CDC public health campaigns through clickthrough data.
Cookies used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on CDC.gov through third party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes by these third parties.
Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page.