Street Outreach Services
Who We Are
Street Outreach Services (SOS) is the mobile outreach component of SFCCC’s Health Care for the Homeless (HCH) program. Since 1988, SOS has provided high-quality, nonjudgmental health services directly to unhoused people in places where they live and congregate.
Through our affiliated Vet SOS program, we offer free veterinary care to the companion animals of unhoused San Franciscans as a creative way of linking their human guardians with health care services.
What we do
Traveling in a medical van to sites throughout San Francisco, the dedicated SOS team of doctors, nurses, outreach workers, and volunteers creates “clinics without walls” at soup kitchens, on city streets, under freeway overpasses, and in parks.
By going directly to unhoused people - meeting them on their own turf - the SOS team builds relationships of trust, and breaks down the barriers that keep unhoused people from the care they need and deserve. Each year over 1,000 unhoused San Franciscans receive care from us, improving their lives and the health delivery system.
Our Services
On-site preventive and urgent health care
Connection to a medical home (a doctor or nurse practitioner and clinic) for long-term primary care
Linkage to other needed resources, e.g., mental health, substance recovery, dental services, legal support
Assistance with housing and benefits applications
Distribution of health and hygiene supplies
Transportation assistance
Workforce Development
SOS aims to train future health providers in the successful care of unhoused people and other vulnerable population. Through a partnership with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and California Area Health Education Center (AHEC), we host residents from the UCSF School of Medicine’s internal medicine and family practice residency programs for rotations on the SOS van.
Each year over 20 medical residents, medical students, and nursing students receive hands-on training from our skilled multidisciplinary team.