Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O'Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People

Kidder describes riding in a van through South Boston with Dr. Jim O’Connell. The outreach van, which has been operating for three decades, is one tool the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program uses to help the unhoused population around the city. Kidder describes Jim’s encounter with a long-time patient who responds only when Jim calls. The program, founded in the 1980s, now employees over 400 people. Jim previously spent countless hours throughout the night with the “Street Team” caring for his patients throughout the city. Kidder joins him for his Monday-night rounds, which end around midnight.

The van carries food, blankets, socks, and underwear. When necessary and when patients acquiesce, the program offers rides to hospitals and shelters. Kidder describes how methods of treating people living on the streets of Boston have changed over the years, largely informed by the input from the people being treated. For example, the board—made up of health care practitioners and formerly unhoused people—put into policy that doctors shine flashlights into their own faces instead of those of people who are sleeping or resting in places around the city. Kidder discusses the demographic of the unhoused population in Boston.