Roseanna Means, a doctor who has provided care to Boston’s female homeless population via street outreach for over three decades, views the pandemic through the lens of homelessness — and “boy, it was very hard,” she says. “I saw so much fear and uncertainty and so much hopelessness and despair.”
During the worst of the Covid-19 surges, dressed in full PPE, Means provided medical care to hundreds of homeless women whose rate of infection was 35%, higher than the state average. “It was very scary,” she says. And with many overnight shelters fully shut down as a result of the pandemic, “we knew there were a lot of women who weren’t seeing us but needed us.”
As a result, Means, the founder of Health Care Without Walls, decided this year to open her first freestanding health clinic for homeless women in downtown Boston, a block from Boston Common. She raised $80,000 through a Broadway-themed fundraiser in February, and officially opened the doors this summer. “We’re open 9 to 5,” she says, and a team of nurse practitioners, physician assistants and doctors provide “gap” care to women unable to access mainstream medical systems. Her staff also helps women apply for housing, Medicaid and other benefits.
Boston has about 4,000 homeless women, Means estimates, and many are dealing with chronic diseases like asthma, diabetes, hypertension, emphysema or rheumatoid arthritis — not to mention a host of issues unique to women.
“Women face a lot of trauma on the streets, and a lot of harassment. They get bullied, they get beaten up, they get raped, they get held up at knifepoint,” Means says.
The pandemic, with its lockdowns and closures, has created even more upheaval for the homeless population. And many more women have joined its ranks, due to job loss and other financial hardships. “The thing that I saw that is the hardest is the number of new faces,” says Means, including women in their 60s, 70s and 80s who are on the street for the first time. “They were evicted despite the eviction moratorium.”
Especially at the start of the pandemic, when most shelters closed and women were unable to access their usual safety nets, “I was pretty helpless,” says Means. “I think everybody suffered, whether you are a provider or a receiver of care.”
A Career Dedicated to the Homeless
Means, who is also an attending physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, has long been dedicated to the homeless population. The one-time candy striper left Bennington College in the 1970s to pursue pre-med studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, eventually graduating top of her class at Tufts University.
During her residency, right after the Vietnam War, Means volunteered with the International Rescue Committee to help Cambodian refugees in Thailand who had fled the brutal dictator Pol Pot. “I worked in the emergency tent at this camp,” she recalls, seeing things like landmine injuries and amputations without anesthesia. “It’s just the kind of thing that they don’t teach you … certainly not in medical school.”
When she came back home, she canceled plans to specialize in cardiology. “I just thought, OK, I want to do something that’s going to help people who have lost everything,” she says. “I wanted to take care of disenfranchised people.”
Means began volunteering at homeless shelters in Boston, juggling that with setting up and running her own practice in primary care women’s health. She was naturally drawn to the needs of homeless women — and gradually began to understand that some women, especially those who have suffered abuse, fear being at shelters or clinics with men.
In 1999, Means founded Heath Care Without Walls as a 501(c)(3) to focus exclusively on the needs of vulnerable women and children. The nonprofit is funded through grants and donations, currently operating on a $1.5 million annual budget. While she and her team spent years providing health care via street outreach or shelter visits, she began to think about opening her own clinic.
And then, “the pandemic accelerated that decision,” Means says. When Covid first hit, “we were cut off, but we knew there were a lot of women who weren’t seeing us but needed us.” After searching for a space, she signed a 3-year-lease earlier this year and just completed an extensive application process that will allow the clinic to someday help people needing substance abuse treatment.
For now, the clinic is providing free health care to women who, according to Means, never “wanted to be living this horrible lifestyle.” The women she helps have “a piece of my heart” — and that’s what keeps her going.
“What people don’t think about is that this could be you or me,” she says, “because life is fragile, finances are fragile, rents are high, the cost of living is high. And that’s what I say to a lot of people: There but for the grace of God go any of us.”
Dr. Roseanna Means – Health Care Without Walls – Final Conformed Script
Dr. Means SOT: It’s not too bad, actually. I’m getting maybe 140 over 100. So you should go back today, take your blood pressure medicine and take it tomorrow.
Dr. Means: Health care actually really is about, do you have a roof over your head and do you feel safe? And are you drinking clean water? And are you eating the proper kinds of foods? All of those things impact health.
Dr. Means SOT: We’re just friendly people and we like to help out.
TEXT: Dr. Roseanna Means – Founder + CEO – Health Care Without Walls, Boston, Massachusetts
Dr. Means: For people who don't have resources, food, or money, or help, it doesn't matter if you have an insurance card and a primary care provider if you can't get to them. Health Care Without Walls provides free walk-in acute and episodic care to women who are homeless or marginally housed. We do this all because women deserve better than what they're getting now.
TEXT: Roseanna grew up Massachusetts in the 1960s.
TEXT: She attended Bennington College -- but she never felt she fit in.
Dr. Means: I was sitting at my desk in my dorm room. It was very quiet. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, I heard this voice that just said, “You will be a doctor.” No preamble, no flashing light, no thunderbolts, no lightning. It was just, that's it. And it was over. I just was so surprised because I wasn't religious. I don't drink. And I remember thinking, “Okay, that's what I'm going to do.”
TEXT: Roseanna left Bennington soon after to study biology at MIT in Boston.
TEXT: In 1981 she completed her doctorate at Tufts Medical School.
TEXT: She did her residency in primary care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and has been affiliated with it ever since.
TEXT: At the same time, Roseanna volunteered with a homeless program at Mass General Hospital.
Dr. Means: The majority of our clients were men. And there were fewer women coming into the clinics that I knew were actually out there, either walking the streets, or staying in the shelters. And I will say up front, the majority of homeless men are men who have had a difficult life and are good people. However, there were also, among those men, guys that beat up the women, or raped them, or made life so difficult for the women that they just did not want to come into the clinics.
TEXT: In 1998 Roseanna began a nonprofit to care for women in a safe place.
Dr. Means: There was a women’s shelter where the director let me come in once a week with my blood pressure cuff and my stethoscope and just sit there, like this, and say, “Does anyone want their blood pressure taken by a doctor?” And it was very slow at first.
TEXT: A decade later, Roseanna and a team of volunteers were working at 12 shelters all over the Boston area.
Dr. Means: At the very basic level, we provide walk-in medical care. Almost anything you would treat in a primary care office, we can do.
TEXT: The team also helps clients apply for housing, food, and government benefits.
SOT: It usually takes about two or three business days for them to reply back to her, correct?
-OK, and I’ll give you this all in writing.
-Thank you.
Dr. Means: We will meet them at a coffee shop, at a hair salon, at a shelter, on the streets, in a car; any place that we need to find them, so that they can get the care that they need.
TEXT: In 2013 Roseanna started a program to address the needs of women over 55.
Dr. Means: We found that in the three years that we followed these women, that we reduced their own emergency room use by 86 percent and the level of hospitalisations by 77 percent. This is huge for the health care system.
TEXT: In 2021, Roseanna finally moved her team of 30 into its first permanent clinic in downtown Boston.
TEXT: The annual budget is $1.5 million.
Dr. Means SOT: There was a lot that happened over the past year. The pandemic must have been so hard for you.
SOT: There’s a lot of people that live in the streets. They need housing. Give them the hope of being happy in life!
Dr. Means: The women, the ladies, as I call them, they have endured much more hard hardship than I have ever endured. And yet they have an incredible amount of courage and resiliency. If I can bring one little moment of light into their life, even for a little bit of time, that's what keeps me going. Our currency is human kindness, and that's what we give. And that's probably more valuable than anything I learned in medical school.