‘Helping them where they are.’ Mobile team soon to bring healthcare to Tacoma’s homeless
The City of Tacoma has announced it will be one of the first in Washington to launch a new mobile unit intended to give preventative health care directly to those experiencing homelessness.
The Street Medicine Pilot Program is being funded by a $1 million grant from the Washington State Health Care Authority. Four other jurisdictions — the City of Spokane, the City of Everett, King County and Kitsap County — receiving similar funding.
“We recognize that traditional healthcare models often fail to reach those living unsheltered,” said Tacoma-Pierce County Board of Health Vice Chair and Tacoma City Council Member Joe Bushnell in a news release. “By taking healthcare directly to the streets, we can break down barriers to access, address immediate needs, and build lasting relationships that support long-term health and well-being.”
Vicky McLaurin with Tacoma’s Human Services Commission told The News Tribune the street-medicine team would be comprised of three or four specialists from different disciplines: physicians, nurses, behavioral health specialists and community health workers.
“They will be going out into actual encampments and helping them where they are at,” she told The News Tribune.
Dr. James Miller, health officer for the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department who is helping organize the team, said the team will offer wound care, foot care, disease testing and treatment as well as substance-use disorder treatment.
“The goal is to provide a spectrum of services as well as wrap-around services,” he told the News Tribune.
During Pierce County’s annual survey of those living unhoused, 2,661 people were counted living in shelters, vehicles or outside on a single night in 2024. Of those surveyed, 22% reported a physical disability, 25% reported a chronic health condition, and 26% reported substance use.
“There are substantial [healthcare] access issues for those living unhoused,” Miller said.
He said that often those who do not trust or feel comfortable staying in shelters do not feel comfortable in clinical settings, either, so they do not seek or receive healthcare.
“Preventative care is the way to sustain peoples’ lives,” McLaurin told the News Tribune.
She said when folks living unsheltered lose connection with preventative healthcare, their health often deteriorates to the point of emergency intervention.
“Emergency care is expensive primary care,” McLaurin said. “In the long run this should be a cost saving program for taxpayers.”
Miller said he hopes the street-medicine program will help expand connections to the health department’s opioid use disorder treatment programs and offer access to those who did not previously have it.
“Our goal is that there is no wrong door to accessing treatment, or even a need to walk through a physical door,” Miller said of the program’s “meet them where they are” approach.
He told the News Tribune the department is working to finalize contracts for the program, with no specific launch date yet planned.