Advancing Street Medicine: A Bridge From Street to Stability

For Dr. Danielle Williams, Medical Director and Street Medicine Physician of Roots’ Oakland STOMP (Street Team Outreach Medical Program), healthcare begins where people are, not where systems expect them to be. For over eight years, Dr. Williams has led STOMP’s street-level medical outreach across Oakland, delivering comprehensive, relationship-based care to unhoused residents while building pathways toward housing, stability, and better long-term health outcomes.

Trained at UCSF School of Medicine and Harbor UCLA Family Medicine Residency Program, Dr. Williams was drawn to Roots because of its early and intentional commitment to street medicine. At the time she joined, Roots was one of the few clinics in Alameda County operating a dedicated street medicine program. That alignment, bringing primary care directly into encampments and meeting people with dignity rather than bureaucracy, shaped her decision and continues to define her work.

STOMP reflects Roots’ founding mission to uplift those impacted by systemic inequities and poverty. Just as Roots began by serving Black men reentering society after incarceration, STOMP focuses on another deeply marginalized population: people experiencing homelessness. By removing barriers such as transportation challenges, rigid appointment systems, lack of documentation, and distrust of medical systems rooted in past harm, STOMP replaces episodic care with continuity and trust.

Under Dr. Williams’ leadership, STOMP has helped pioneer street medicine in Alameda County. The team delivers nearly all elements of primary care directly in the field: medical exams, phlebotomy, benefits enrollment, behavioral health linkage, substance use referrals, and housing assessments, all while establishing a primary care medical home that supports both health outcomes and housing stability. This model has evolved alongside the changing needs of Oakland’s unhoused community, many of whom are now increasingly ready for employment once their health and housing are stabilized.

That continuity is most visible every Wednesday at Roots’ campus during Welcome Wednesday, an open-campus day designed specifically for people experiencing homelessness. Individuals first engaged by STOMP in encampments are invited into a low-barrier, welcoming environment where they can access medical and mental health care, housing assessments, job and resume assistance, hot meals, fresh produce, food pantry resources, and hot showers. Welcome Wednesday serves as a critical bridge, transforming street-based relationships into sustained, coordinated care within Roots’ brick-and-mortar setting.

Dr. Williams says one of the most meaningful shifts over time has been the growing ability to move patients from the street and encampments into permanent housing. When STOMP began, housing options were limited. Today, through coordinated entry and expanding partnerships, more clients are being placed into apartments, dramatically improving health outcomes and quality of life.

“Housing,” she notes, “is the most important intervention we can offer.”

Dr. Williams also serves as a leading advocate for policies that protect this progress. Drawing from daily experience in encampments and on the street, she has urged Oakland leaders to reconsider encampment abatement strategies that displace residents without coordination; these policies disrupt outreach, sever trust, and often cause people to lose rare and critical housing opportunities altogether.

“Finding ways to sustain this program without relying solely on insurance would benefit the unhoused community long-term,” she says. 

As funding structures shift from grant-based support to insurance reimbursement, sustaining high-quality, relationship-driven street medicine requires continued public investment and philanthropic partnership. Dr. Williams’ work with STOMP makes one truth clear: homelessness is not solved by displacement. It is solved through trust, continuity, and housing delivered by programs like STOMP and spaces like Welcome Wednesday that treat care as a human relationship, not a transaction.