Before asking his patients about their medical needs, Thomas D. Huggett, MD’85, likes to begin his appointments with another topic: their goals.
Huggett, a family medicine physician who has spent three decades working with marginalized and unhoused people on Chicago’s West Side, knows that those goals might differ from the typical concerns a doctor might hear about weight loss or managing cholesterol.
“Some people want to find steady employment or stable housing, while others are looking to not use street drugs or reconnect with their family,” Huggett said.
As medical director of mobile health at Lawndale Christian Health Center, Huggett and his team offer primary care services at 20 shelters, including 12 traditional sites and eight dedicated to migrants.
He sees conditions as varied as diabetes, hypertension, wounds and skin infections, mental and behavioral issues, and substance use disorder—and he knows the housing insecurity issues that may exacerbate them can happen for many reasons, sometimes without warning.
Huggett and other clinicians work in shelters and among an estimated 150 street medicine programs nationwide. Street medicine is a relatively new medical practice in which health care providers deliver medical care to homeless populations outside of traditional facilities—on the streets, in encampments, in shelters.
For Huggett and his fellow street medicine clinicians, the workloads are rising.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development saw the number of people experiencing homelessness (PEH) rise 12% from 2022 to 2023. Last year, it recorded the highest point-in-time count of PEH—more than 650,000 on a single night in January—since reporting began in 2007.
Similarly, Chicago officials cited a PEH count of 18,836 on January 25 for the city’s annual point-in- time recording, a threefold increase from one year earlier. That total includes migrant arrivals bussed or flown in from the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Our intent is to provide a very low barrier to care, to build rapport and relationships so that over time we may have the opportunity to deliver care to our patients, and perhaps connect them with housing and traditional outpatient services,” he said.
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