With the novel coronavirus upending society, Rachel Schuyler felt like a sitting duck. At the Bexar County lockup in downtown San Antonio, she lacked supplies like hand sanitizer and cringed each time a dormmate coughed. On April 3, she was finally released—one day after county officials announced a deputy at the jail had tested positive for the virus, the first of at least 23 cases among staff and inmates at the facility. But Schuyler’s problems weren’t over: She had no house or apartment awaiting her. By the following day, she was living under a highway overpass in the midst of a global pandemic.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, inmates and advocates have called for swift reductions in the prison and jail populations to avoid outbreaks. Some county officials and judges have responded by using plea deals or personal bonds to bring down the numbers, a trend that’s sparked a backlash from Governor Greg Abbott. But just because someone escapes the cramped, unsanitary conditions of incarceration doesn’t mean she has a safe place to go to protect herself from the coronavirus.
