The Night Ministry: COVID Continues to Create Barriers for Chicago’s Homeless Population

The temperature is dropping on an already cold January morning. Still, Marcus, a client of The Night Ministry’s Health Outreach Program, has removed his coat and sweatshirt and pulled his arm out of his shirt sleeve so Stephan Koruba, The Night Ministry’s Senior Nurse Practitioner, can give him a COVID vaccination booster.

Marcus had lost his vaccination card a few months prior when the tent he lives in on the edge of downtown Chicago was ransacked. Koruba scrolls on a phone to locate Marcus’s electronic vaccination record and then issues him a new card with the date, brand, and vial number of his first vaccination, and now his booster.