Doctors Without Walls – Santa Barbara Street Medicine

Other than maybe Guaranteed Income pilot program initiatives that provide recurring, unconditional cash payments directly to low-income individuals and families with no strings attached, you can’t get much more direct in terms of offering support to those in need than Doctors Without Walls – Santa Barbara Street Medicine (DWW-SBSM). Just as its name says, the nonprofit provides free medical care for the most vulnerable of Santa Barbara County, almost exclusively the homeless population, when and where those services are needed. 

Doctors Without Walls – the name was coined as a tweak to the international medical nonprofit Doctors Without Borders – to amplify the concept that unlike traditional healthcare, Doctors Without Walls doesn’t make its clientele come to them, as entering a building can prove an insurmountable obstacle to many unhoused people. Doctors Without Walls means health care wherever unhoused people might be found, including (among other locations) in encampments, in alleys and alcoves, under bridges, on beaches, and in public parks and parking lots, 

“It’s a big part of our system,” said Blake Sanchez, DWW-SBSM’s communications coordinator. “We have more than 10 clinics per week where we go out in our mobile van, take our equipment, and then set up stops at parks, which are stationary and regular, so people know where to find us. But the street medicine part is that we also do more mobile rounds where we actually walk with our backpacks, carrying the medicine and equipment, trying to find people.”

Who they end up serving, and the services needed, can vary widely, Sanchez said. 

“It might just be an infected wound that we triage and put a new dressing on. Or it can be uncontrolled diseases like diabetes, which is a big one, or untreated mental illness. People might have been diagnosed but have run out of medication and end up going months or years without having it. We carry the common ones with us so we can help them right away and give them a pack that can last a little while.”

What happens after that, Sanchez said, is where the companion care team comes in. 

“We know we probably aren’t going to solve your problems in one visit. We understand that it takes a while, and you need somebody on your team to vouch for you, help you get to your primary care appointments, go to that pharmacy you’ve been needing to go to. The team helps the patient overcome the obstacles they’ve been facing whether it’s medication or applying for a program or even just having bus tokens so that they can go to the pharmacy on a monthly basis to get what they need themselves.” 

Establishing the connection is paramount, as the homeless population can be notoriously wary of engaging with someone they don’t know or answering questions or even accepting help beyond money.

“It’s pretty cool that we have a group of people that they trust,” Sanchez said. “They see us now on the streets and they see us as someone that’s not going to judge them, but rather someone that wants to help them when they do feel ready.” 

That welcoming is often not immediate, he said. 

“It usually takes us three times seeing someone before they finally say yes to letting us help them with Medi-Cal enrollment or to get connected back with their primary care physician. Other times it’s even a lot longer. It can be six months to years before out of nowhere they say, ‘Hey, I finally want to get that help that you’ve been trying to offer me.’ But it’s really cool when that happens.” 

DWW-SBSM has been adding services over the years, including a mobile dental clinic that can handle everything from check-ups to emergency fillings. Women’s service extends to a fully female staffed Women’s Free Health Clinic at Transition House as well as a planned gynecological clinic set to begin this fall. 

All in all, DWW-SBSM has been takin’ it to the streets – and beyond – since 2005, with the organization becoming the first independent street medicine team in the country to achieve 501(c)(3) status just three years later. The organization relies on roughly 80 percent private donations and largely unrestricted grants, minimizing administrative costs so that most funding supports direct services, and partially insulating DWW-SBSM from the drastic governmental funding cutbacks since 2025 that are expected to increase in the coming months. Though demand for its services is likely to skyrocket as reductions in Medi-Cal and the like set in. 

The organization also has a relatively rare structure where not only is it a fully volunteer outfit, but professional healthcare providers, including doctors, nurses and EMTs, work alongside med students and even a large contingent of pre-health students from Westmont, UCSB, and SBCC. 

“It’s not only what lets us put on so many clinics and mobile visits, it also provides education and training for students even before they get to medical school,” Sanchez said. 

Through its collective efforts, Doctors Without Walls both improves access to essential healthcare for people experiencing homelessness and marginalization, and trains future health professionals in empathy, listening, and community-centered practice.

“You learn how to have more empathy, and you learn that you need to listen more as a healthcare provider rather than just telling someone what to do,” said Sanchez, who is currently enrolled in dental school himself. “It’s a beautiful thing that we get to mentor these pre-health students and it sets them off on a really good footing for what they’re going to accomplish in their careers, hopefully being the best healthcare provider they can be for their own communities once they move away.”

Visit https://sbdww.org