Meeting People Where They Are: How LICH and Northwell Bring Health Care to Long Island’s Homeless Community

For individuals experiencing homelessness, health care is often one more thing pushed aside by the urgency of daily survival. When finding food, staying warm, and remaining safe take priority, routine medical care can feel impossible to access.

The Long Island Coalition for the Homeless was recently featured alongside our partner, Northwell Health’s Street Medicine Team, in an ABC7 New York story highlighting the impact of bringing health care directly to people experiencing homelessness across Long Island.

Jenny and Bryan’s Story

Jenny and her partner Bryan share what life has been like while experiencing homelessness for the past three years. The couple has been living in a tent through the winter, enduring freezing temperatures and harsh conditions while trying to care for their family.

Jenny and Bryan are patients of Northwell’s Street Medicine Team, which has been working in partnership with the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless for more than a year. Through this collaboration, the Coalition helps individuals access health insurance and stay connected to care, ensuring that medical treatment does not end after an initial visit.

For Bryan, this partnership proved to be life-saving. Through street-based outreach and ongoing follow-up, clinicians identified serious medical conditions, including blood clots and a pulmonary embolism. With continued care and coordination, Bryan was able to receive treatment for conditions that he later shared had nearly taken his life.

For Jenny and Bryan, being seen and supported has made a difference, even in the most difficult moments. As Jenny shared in the segment, having someone show up and care provides hope at a time when so much feels uncertain.

Meeting People Where They Are

The ABC7 story also highlights the broader challenges faced by people experiencing homelessness across Long Island. As noted by Dylan Schwarz, Street Medicine Liaison for the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless, prioritizing medical appointments can be incredibly difficult when someone is unsure where their next meal will come from.

Street medicine helps address this reality by bringing care directly to people, rather than expecting them to navigate complex systems on their own. This approach emphasizes dignity, respect, and consistency, values that are essential to building trust and improving long-term health outcomes.

Northwell’s Street Medicine Team has traveled thousands of miles across Long Island, reaching dozens of individuals who might otherwise go without care. Each visit represents not just medical treatment, but a commitment to showing up again and again.

Continued Recognition of Life-Saving Work

This ABC7 feature is not the first time this year that this partnership has been recognized. Continued media coverage reflects the growing understanding that street medicine and supportive services are critical responses to the health inequities faced by people experiencing homelessness.

For the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless, this recognition reinforces what we see every day. Access to health care and insurance is a vital part of stability, and partnerships like this help ensure individuals are not navigating illness and homelessness alone.

You can read the full ABC7 story here!

How You Can Help

This work is only possible because of community support. Donations to the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless help sustain outreach, insurance navigation, and partnerships that connect individuals to life-saving care.

Your support helps ensure that people experiencing homelessness on Long Island are treated with dignity, respect, and compassion, and are given access to the care they deserve.