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WeCare Street Outreach receives $5,000 grant

3 min read
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WeCare Street Outreach, the program that provides medical care for the city of Washington’s homeless, has a goal: to end chronic homelessness.

The outreach program received a little help recently when it was awarded a $5,000 “Healthy Living in Ethnic Communities” grant from the Pennsylvania Medical Society.

Dr. Monica Speicher, a physician at Canonsburg Family Medicine of the Washington Health System who serves on the faculty of the WHS residency program, started WeCare in December 2009. WeCare provides routine medical care and medical supplies, food and clothing to the homeless.

Over the past four years, the grass-roots program has worked to treat chronic ailments and get the homeless off the streets and into rehabilitation programs and permanent housing.

The organization is affiliated with Washington’s City Mission, the area’s largest homeless shelter, and is supported 100 percent by volunteers and donors. It is modeled after Operation Safety Net, the nationally renowned, Pittsburgh-based program started by street care pioneer Dr. Jim Withers.

“I’m probably most satisfied by the inroads we’ve made in the homeless community. We’ve established ourselves as being trustworthy, which isn’t easy to do with the homeless population, and we have more homeless coming to the clinic every week,” said Speicher, who is grateful to the Washington County Medical Society, which collaborated with WeCare for the grant. “I’m proud of the long-term volunteers we have and the structure that the organization has developed. I’m proud of the grants we’ve received. They’ve given us a chance to take the next step forward.”

WeCare operates a medical clinic in the basement of Jefferson Avenue Methodist Church, where the street population gathers for a hot meal, medical attention and fellowship. The most common ailments are chronic high blood pressure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes. For those who need more medical care, Speicher refers them to the City Mission’s medical clinic.

The program’s long-term goal is to expand throughout Washington County, partnering with other local communities to create a network of regional services for the street homeless.

The grant will be used to help WeCare identify physicians interested in street medicine, to increase the program’s visibility throughout the community and to increase volunteerism.

“I would love to see, through some publicity, other physicians in other areas throughout the state do something similar. I think that through publicizing what we’re doing, we can spark interest in other areas,” said Speicher.

The efforts of Speicher and the WeCare volunteers are appreciated by the homeless – who think of them as friends and family – and by members of the medical community.

From a medical care standpoint, WeCare reduces emergency room costs at local hospitals, where the homeless, often uninsured, go for medical care.

Speicher said one of her goals is to keep people healthy enough so that they don’t have to use hospital health care services as much.

“WeCare Street Outreach does an incredible job helping the neediest from the Washington community,” says Dr. Bruce A. MacLeod, president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society, which works to address issues that impact health care teams and their ability to provide care to patients. “Everyone involved in the organization – volunteer physicians, nurses and other health care professionals – are dedicated to the mission of the organization, and I’m happy that PAMED can aid their financial needs through this grant.”

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