Keeping the Community Safe

Robert DeGuzman

Senior Director of Clinical Services, The Bowery Mission

My Role: I’ve been at the Mission for 10 years. I started out as a case manager and am now Senior Director of Clinical Services. Since COVID, I’ve headed up the Mission’s Health & Safety Task Force. Our first meeting was on March 2, 2020 and from there it continued to grow.

Early COVID Memories: I remember the day New York City cancelled schools. It was like the whole city had shut down, no markers of life. A colleague tweeted, “If you’re scared, it’s OK. I’m scared too.” I thought, “yeah, that’s what I’m feeling.” Because we all had to deal with the personal impact too. My son was born in November of 2020, so I was also thinking about being a new dad.

Task Force Meetings: It felt like being in the Situation Room. New information was churning out so fast, we had to keep up with a non-stop barrage just to stay on top of things. We jumped into these high-stakes conversations and made decisions right and left that we knew were going to impact so many people. It was like a marathon with a lot of sprints in-between. We had to be “on” all the time. I lost the ability to take a nap.

What Drove You: The degree of responsibility was always on my mind, for the people we serve and the people we serve with. When we thought about the impact of this or that protocol, we were thinking about individual lives, of people we know and love. To honor the level of sacrifice our staff was making, it had to be that personal.

Tackling Problems: One of the hardest challenges was navigating how to offer services outdoors, where people were exposed not only to the elements (rain, cold, heat, etc.) but other factors out of our control like passersby or the media. At the beginning, another challenge was finding isolation options for people who were symptomatic. At that time, there was just no way to verify whether someone actually had COVID or not.

Small Moments of Hope: There were several times where we made a decision and other agencies wound up implementing the same or similar policies. For example, developing our mask categories was pretty awesome. We had to think about so many different scenarios across our spaces. We created policies based on the information we had, and they haven’t changed much because they were solid to begin with. In fact, we were ahead of the curve. I was like, "Wow, we did it!" That’s an area of a lot of pride and thankfulness to God.

On Teamwork: Part of what’s kept me going is seeing my colleagues step up to the plate. I’m constantly impressed by how sharp my colleagues are and how well they solve problems. When you have that kind of grit and intelligence and skill around you, you don’t feel alone. It was so good to be able to lean on other people.

On Perseverance: I’m proud of the moments where I pushed myself to keep going when I felt like there was nothing left in the tank. I think we've all been there. When you’re in the thick of things, you just have to survive and trust that it won’t be in vain.

Parting Words: COVID brought a perfect storm of health issues, racial issues, political issues, infrastructure issues… I don’t think any of us saw all of this happening at once, but it did and it shook the whole world. It revealed our strengths and weaknesses, it brought out the best and unfortunately the worst in us. I think what prevails is humility and listening and the beauty of sacrifice. The world would be in a different place if we learned that.