Go to the People

Inspired by childhood memories of accompanying his father, a family physician, on house calls, and his mother, a nurse, on home-care visits, Dr. Jim Withers began providing medical care to Pittsburgh’s unsheltered homeless population in 1992.Initially dressing as a homeless person (and assisted by a street-savvy formerly homeless man), Jim began making nighttime street rounds in the alleys and under the bridges of the city. Inspired by this bold outreach, other clinical volunteers joined in, and Operation Safety Net was born. Today, the program is recognized as one of the nation’s first full-time street medicine concerns, and it continues to set the standard for this unique form of health care.Over time, Operation Safety Net inspired a movement that has since spread throughout the nation and the world. This film communicates Dr. Withers’ holistic health-care vision while showing firsthand the work of Operation Safety Net, and describing the effects of the movement that it has promulgated.