Black Thistle Street Aid is a collective of volunteer medical practitioners, herbalists & advocates providing access to free healthcare through direct outreach & pop-up clinics to people experiencing houselessness in the Eugene-Springfield, Oregon area.
What do we do?
Our team of volunteers provides weekly non-emergent medical outreach to the Eugene/Springfield area via our roving outreach team and monthly pop-up clinic. Our team of medical providers (MDs, PAs, RNs, EMTs) and clinical herbalists provide integrative health care through a harm-reduction, trauma-informed & humanistic lens.
Services we provide include on-site prescription refill assistance, wound care, foot baths, herbal and medical provider consultations, reproductive health needs, first aid supplies and an array of harm reduction and hygiene/survival supplies. In addition to offering supplies and on-the-spot care, our team provides resource connections, follow-up care and referrals to higher levels of care as needed. As time and capacity allows, our team also assists with systems navigation & advocacy, and will accompany people to their medical appointments, pre-op, emergency room visits etc. which often results in better follow-thru and overall health outcomes.
We recognize that without community collaboration, people often fall through the cracks; we work closely with many other local social service agencies to identify encampments and people who could benefit from our services and vice versa.
Our Clinic
Clinic is held the 2nd Wednesday of each month.
** We are changing locations: UUCE parking lot, 1685 W 13th Ave, Eugene **
Our clinic hosts an integrative team of medical care: precribers (MD, NP, PA), wound nurses and herbalists.
Our monthly clinic provides stability and a place for ongoing care for folks on the street. People are displaced regularly by police and city workers making it difficult to track people down to provide ongoing care via outreach.
Medical Outreach
We provide weekly roving outreach services to encampment locations located in the Eugene/Springfield area. Where the people are, we go. We walk down railroad tracks, alongside rivers and ditches, thru industrial waste fields and wetlands, and alongside sidewalks.
We offer direct medical care, survival and harm reduction supplies, water and resources. By bringing medical care directly to a person, we are able to support people with ongoing and sometimes simple medical interventions, that in turn prevent the need for more serious care or a hospital intervention later on. Read more on our Programs page.
A huge thank you to our donors, funders and community partners!
“With all the many people around here that hate on us these days, it’s refreshing and definitely feels good to have some people on our side. I just want to say thank you, on behalf of all of us houseless folks out here.”
—Unhoused Eugene resident after receiving care from our outreach team.