SF Community Clinic Consortium Street Outreach Services (SOS)

VET SOS is a project of the Street Outreach Services (SOS) program at the San Francisco Community Clinic Consortium (SFCCC). The Street Outreach Services (SOS) team, a program of the SFCCC, is comprised of outreach workers, physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, and volunteers who travel throughout San Francisco creating “clinics without walls” on the streets, at soup kitchens, in parks, under freeway overpasses – wherever homeless people live or congregate. The primary goal of SOS, which was launched in 1988, is to provide urgent and preventive medical care to homeless San Franciscans, ultimately connecting them to an appropriate clinic for primary health care.

SOS utilizes every avenue to reach its homeless clients, many of whom have companion animals. Based on an idea from a former SOS client, in 2001, the SOS program partnered with volunteer Dr. Ilana Strubel, DVM, to begin offering veterinary care once a month to homeless animals as a way to reach out to homeless San Franciscans. The project has been very successful in getting homeless clients linked with needed health and social services-- the first step to turning their lives around and becoming productive citizens.