BOSTON (WHDH) – A Boston doctor is marking a major milestone — he has spent 40 years helping others through Health Care for the Homeless. It’s a humble profession that even more humble beginnings and after all that time serving the community, he says the way he views homelessness has changed as well.

Dr. Jim O’Connell has been caring for Boston’s homeless community for four decades. O’Connell had his sights set on a prestigious oncology fellowship after graduating from Harvard and completing his residency at Mass General Brigham. But the chief of medicine offered him a different path, care for the city’s unhoused under a one-year program, Boston’s Health Care for the Homeless.

“At emergency rooms back then we were getting flooded with homeless people and the thought was how do we get out and take care of them,” he said.

O’Connell said he quickly fell in love with all the challenges that come with caring for the unhoused and he started training under nurses who provided services at the Pine Street Inn. They ordered him to remove his stethoscope and start with a simple but critical task — soaking feet.

“I had to soak feet, they took away all my doctor’s stuff and they said if you soak feet, you’ll learn patience and you’ll learn how to let people get to know you and tell you what they need… that foot soak became the kind of gateway into caring for someone,” he recalled.

Part of O’Connell’s work has been caring for patients where they are, and that includes on the streets at night. He would meet hundreds of people sleeping on the street and would ask if they needed food, water, or medical care. He initially would encourage them to find shelter, but then he met a patient who said something that changed his mind.

“When I go to Pine Street or the shelter I can’t tell which voices are mine,” the patient said, “but when I’m here under the bridge, I know which voices are mine and I can deal with that.”

O’Connell says he now realizes that solving homelessness includes affordable housing, addressing crime, and better programs through education resources. But for now, Healthcare for the Homeless is continuing to meet people where they are.

“You can’t give something to everybody asking but you can acknowledge everybody,” he said. “You can say, ‘hello, sorry, I don’t have anything for you today but how are you doing.”

Looking back, O’Connell said he never expected the program and patients to give him so much in return.

Learn more: https://www.bhchp.org/

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