Hero #147: Jim Withers … (01/07/16)
For more than 20 years, Dr. Jim Withers has taken his medical practice to the streets of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by offering free, quality health care to the homeless.
Originally, to win their trust, Withers used to walk the streets dressed like a homeless person — rubbing dirt in his hair and muddying up his clothes. He would search for those who needed medical attention who might be too suspicious of him otherwise. It was important for Withers to connect with people who wouldn’t seek him out. Instead of waiting for them to come to him, he reached out to them.
Eventually Withers’ one-man mission became a citywide program called Operation Safety Net. Now well-known among the community’s homeless, Withers no longer needs any disguise, and yet he does till set forth every week to seek out those in need. Toting medicine, bottled water, and peanut-butter sandwiches made by the Sisters of Mercy in West Oakland, he and his team climb the South Side Slopes, walk under bridges downtown, and venture into abandoned buildings in the city’s North Side looking for patients. They treat all who are willing to be treated, and they treat them all for free.
Since 1992, Operation Safety Net has cared for well over 1000 people every single year and helped more than 1,200 of them transition into housing. The non-profit also runs a Severe Weather Emergency Shelter as well, which is open to all in need from mid-November to mid-March on nights when the temperature drops below 25 degrees. In addition, Withers started the Street Medicine Institute, a nonprofit organization that helps communities worldwide establish similar programs of their own.
“I think we have reached a point in our society where we have to decide whether we’re in it together or continue to go our separate ways. Street medicine has the capacity to challenge conventional prejudice; it could end up pulling us together. Perhaps it could even facilitate a new and unified vision of community and commitment to each other.” ~ Jim Withers
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