Dr. Jim O'Connell's urgent mission to bring healing to homeless people
November 7, 2022
Pulitzer winner Kidder (A Truck Full of Money) spotlights in this poignant account the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, “the country’s largest medical system wholly devoted to the care of homeless people.” At the center of the narrative is Jim O’Connell, the program’s founding physician and organizer of its Street Team, which ministers to people who shun shelters and live “mainly outside or in makeshift quarters.” According to Kidder, the Health Care for the Homeless Program works against the grain of corporate medicine by emphasizing continuity of care and the importance of listening attentively to and spending time with homeless people. Interwoven with O’Connell’s story are those of his patients, including Tony Columbo, who spent 18 years in prison for sexual assault and struggles with substance abuse and mental disorders. Drawing on five years’ worth of reporting, Kidder vividly portrays life on the streets and in the program’s health clinics, and sheds light on various legal and policy matters, though the focus is less on the institutional forces that contribute to chronic homelessness than on the individual lives it touches. Keenly observed and fluidly written, this is a compassionate report from the front lines of one of America’s most intractable social problems.
Starred review from June 10, 2024
Pulitzer Prize winner Kidder (The Soul of a New Machine) takes listeners inside an organization providing health care for Boston's unhoused population. At the end of his medical residency, Jim O'Connell was asked to spend a year providing health care to citizens without homes. This was a job he felt he could not refuse, and his one year became his life's calling. Kidder reveals the complications and daily frustrations faced by unhoused people and the flawed systems that continue to fail them. O'Connell learned firsthand how challenging it is to provide health care to a population that cannot store medications, is often robbed, and who needs to find their next meal rather than consider long-term treatment. The stories contained here are gruesome and heartbreaking. Narrated by the author, this audiobook brings humanity to his subjects as only a firsthand observer can do. He differentiates voicing, which helps listeners get to know the people in the book. VERDICT This excellent audio shines a light on the unsung heroes providing frontline health care to unhoused people and demonstrates the power of a small group dedicated to a cause. A recommended purchase for all libraries.--Christa Van Herreweghe
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