Frederick Gilchrist disembarked a shuttle transporting unsheltered residents to a vaccine clinic in downtown D.C. on an overcast day in April. He rode with fellow residents of the VA Medical Center in Southeast, waiting patiently for their turn at the jab and a little peace of mind.

“This is wonderful,” Gilchrist, a Vietnam veteran, said after receiving his second dose of the Moderna vaccine in a pitched-up white tent.

Gilchrist says getting a vaccine alleviated some of his anxiety about the coronavirus and hopes other unhoused or reluctant residents do the same.

“A lot of people that should get it are afraid of it because of the way it’s been built up,” he says.

Sharon Robinson, 56, is unhoused and also received her second dose Friday.

“It’s a wonderful thing to be able to see the rest of my family,” she said.

Robinson heard about the site through a contact at the Department of Human Services, which she said has been helpful in getting people experiencing homelessness vaccinated.

“They’ve reached out in our community wonderfully,” she said. “They tried to get everyone vaccinated that chose to get vaccinated.”

DHS teamed up with Unity Health Care in January to host clinics across the District that vaccinate people experiencing homelessness and the frontline staff who serve them. People experiencing homelessness have largely lagged behind other groups in vaccination rates nationally and in the District. They also tend to be more vulnerable to severe disease from the coronavirus, according to the CDC. Groups like Unity and DHS have helped fill those gaps.

Unity’s Health Care for the Homeless team has vaccinated 1,200 people and the frontline staff who work with them with their first and second doses of the Moderna vaccine since the first week of March, according to a press release from the group.

Dr. Anne Cardile, medical director at Unity Health Care Center and Healthcare for the Homeless, says the clinic vaccinated approximately 150 people last Friday with second doses of the Moderna vaccine. The clinic typically serves 100-150 people per day.

“Such effort has gone into mitigating [rates of COVID-19] and to really understand that because the risk is so high [we need to] focus the vaccination efforts on these folks because this is a tremendously important and potentially vulnerable population,” Cardile says.

The District estimates more than 6,500 people experiencing homelessness fall under its Phase 1B distribution plan. More than 1,300 people staying in shelters and staff members have received at least the first Moderna shot, and so far more than 3,300 doses have been administered, according to the Washington Post. Additionally, Black people comprise a majority of the homeless population in the region and are vaccinated at lower rates than their white counterparts.

Part of Unity’s strategy for getting people experiencing homelessness vaccinated has been to focus on the most vulnerable groups within the community first. In the two months following vaccine rollout, the clinics vaccinated people in high-risk congregate settings like shelters. Now, the focus has expanded to people experiencing homelessness who aren’t living in shelters, a group many states don’t mention in their vaccine distribution plan.

Not long ago, Stephanie Williams and her daughters Kennedy, 7, and Kmiyh, 8, from Southwest would have fallen into the latter category.

Williams found out about the clinic through a contact at the Brooks Family Shelter in Ward 3 where she used to stay. She and her family are just happy they’re finally inoculated.

“It means a lot to me because you never know who got COVID,” she says. “Safety first.”

The clinic typically offers the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine for anyone who hasn’t received their first dose and may not return for the second. Since the vaccine doesn’t need to be refrigerated, it makes it easier for Unity and other organizations to incorporate vaccination into their regular outreach efforts. Health officials recently put a pause on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine following reports of severe blood clots identified in six women who received the vaccine. The clinic is now only administering the Moderna vaccine.

“During the temporary pause of use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, DHS in partnership with Unity Health Care will offer first doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at vaccination clinics for District residents experiencing homelessness,” Lauren Kinard, a spokesperson for the department, wrote in an emailed statement to DCist.

Cardile expects there will be many unhoused residents still in need of vaccines once a majority of the population is inoculated. For now, the organization and its partners are vaccinating people one tent at a time until the end of the month.

This story has been updated to include additional information about the clinic’s discontinued use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.