Colorado Gov. Jared Polis cares deeply about the homeless, for which the Springs Rescue Mission gives thanks.

Staff and volunteers at the mission are racing to protect the city’s homeless from contracting and spreading COVID-19. They quickly organized staffers and volunteers to transform a building on the mission’s campus into an isolation shelter in anticipation of imminent and widespread illness among the homeless.

The isolation building would help protect populations of homeless people throughout the rest of the mission’s multiservice campus.

To transition the building at 111 West Las Vegas St., they cleaned and sterilized walls, ceilings, floors and other surfaces. They installed toilets and showers and brought in 130 cots.

It was almost ready to open when bureaucratic reality intervened. Friday morning the mission’s insurance carrier, Philadelphia Insurance Company, objected to the addition of an isolation facility.

“We were pressed against the wall,” said Travis Williams, the mission’s chief development officer. “If we do this, they said it would put the riders for the rest of our campus in jeopardy regarding coverage for communicable diseases.”

That makes little sense. The mission’s isolation efforts are to reduce the spread of COVID-19. The continued lack of an isolation shelter means an extraordinary risk for everyone on the campus – clients, staffers, and volunteers alike – and the prospect of more expense for the insurer.

The Gazette reached out to Philadelphia Insurance and the mission’s broker for an explanation but received no immediate response.

To satisfy the insurer, the mission could simply ignore the need for isolation and let people with COVID-19 infect the whole place. Instead, mission leaders changed course and transformed the historic Colorado Springs City Auditorium into an isolation shelter.

“Our faith is what guides us,” Williams said. “We lead with our faith and do the right thing and hope the rest of the community follows us as we step into the fire.”

Williams predicted Tuesday that the shelter would open Wednesday. But the new arrangement is far from ideal. The shelter is nearly two urban miles from the mission’s campus. Patients confirmed with COVID-19 at the mission will travel by ambulance to the auditorium. Food, clothing and other supplies will travel to and fro. The off-campus option, Williams explains, creates inefficiencies and puts more people at risk of infection.

Williams suspects homeless individuals with COVID-19 will grow to numbers much greater than the auditorium can facilitate. If so, they will look again to use the on-campus building at 111 West Las Vegas St.

The Gazette brought this matter to the attention of Gov. Polis, suspecting he would care and take action.

Polis co-founded Colorado’s Academy of Urban Learning to educate homeless children and those at high risk of homelessness. Additionally, he has wasted no time using the Colorado Division of Insurance to demand flexibility and cooperation from insurance companies while we endure the pandemic. He ordered insurers to waive co-pays and deductibles for patients seeking coronavirus testing.

Polis did not let us down. Within moments of hearing the dilemma, the governor had Colorado Insurance Commissioner Michael Conway on the phone with mission executives.

“It was a great call,” Williams said. “He assured us he would fight for us and said if we had any trouble renewing our overall policy he would make things right.”

Mission leaders hope the Division of Insurance can get the on-campus building cleared for use as a second isolation shelter. Other communities, he said, are putting homeless people with COVID-19 on the streets for lack of isolation capacity.

Thank you, Gov. Polis and Commissioner Conway. Thanks for taking immediate action to help our community’s most vulnerable individuals and the selfless people who work to keep them safe, healthy and alive.