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.