Welcome Wednesday: Where Access Meets Dignity
Welcome Wednesday began in 2018 as a modest, but intentional effort to remove obstacles to care: no appointments required, no complex intake processes, and no barriers. When COVID-19 disrupted traditional service delivery, the need for this model did not diminish; it intensified. Roots sprang into action for our community. We expanded Welcome Wednesday into a fully comprehensive, coordinated care operation while maintaining culturally congruent, low-barrier access to care.
Today, Welcome Wednesday operates as an open and safe space for unhoused and unsheltered community members.
Every Wednesday at Roots Community Health, our main clinic in Deep East Oakland becomes something our community urgently needs and too rarely experiences: an open, coordinated space where people can access primary care, connect to health navigators, and find dignity without barriers. We call this weekly program Welcome Wednesday, and for the past five years, it has served as a critical lifeline for people experiencing homelessness, those recently released from incarceration, and vulnerable elders with complex health and social needs.
2025 Impact at a Glance
- Broad Reach: We engaged 1,937 unique community members at Welcome Wednesday in 2025.
- High-Acuity Care: Nearly half (47%) of all attendees were age 50 and older, many with multiple medical and/or behavioral health conditions.
Each week, our clients can access Roots essential services.
High-Demand Comprehensive Supports
93% of our clients requested two or more of the following essential services:
| Service Category | Type of Request |
| Personal Support | Meeting with a Health Navigator, Transition Services |
| Medical Care | Primary Care Services |
| Mental Health | Behavioral Health and Substance Use Services (Individual and Group) |
| Social Safety Net | CalFresh Enrollment, Medi-Cal Enrollment, Housing Services, and Workforce Services |
| Public Health | COVID-19 Kits, Health Screenings, Vaccinations |
| Basic Needs | Hot Meals, Produce, and Showers |
In the same visit, community members can enroll in Medi-Cal and CalFresh, and receive workforce and housing support such as job readiness coaching and connection to rent subsidies.
Chineda Flowers, Senior Patient Services & Registration Manager at Roots, recalls a moment in which a community member came in asking only for a shower.
Chineda helped him get set up with everything he needed, soap from Clean360, a towel, a private facility. When the gentleman returned to the courtyard, he stopped Chineda, grinning from ear to ear:
“I look like a million bucks,” he said.
The change was immediate. Chineda recounts how high-demand comprehensive support plays a crucial role in the first step moving our members from crisis to secure.
“Access to a shower not only re-energized the gentleman but also appeared to improve his sense of dignity”.
Roots remains deeply committed to this integrated approach. Welcome Wednesday serves as a critical entry point for a high-acuity population, including a significant number of elders and individuals who have been marginalized from the traditional safety net. Without this low-barrier access, these community members often seek care only through emergency rooms, inpatient hospitalizations, or within carceral settings — systems that are costly, reactive, and fail to address root causes. By contrast, Welcome Wednesday provides prevention and intervention services necessary to reduce avoidable crisis-level encounters and stabilize those at the highest risk of homelessness.
Our 100% Commitment
We pride ourselves on removing the hurdles that stand between our clients and their health.
- 100% Access to Primary Care, Behavioral Health, and Navigation.
- 100% Barrier-Free Access to essential screenings and vaccinations.
In an effort to strengthen coordination while preserving the low-barrier spirit that makes the program effective, we continue to seek out investments from public-private partnerships that encourage scaling operations, engagement with safety-net strategies, and connection to much-needed in-kind support, such as medical supplies, that allow us to serve the highest-need populations in East Oakland.
What truly drives Welcome Wednesday’s impact is our staff:
- Primary care and behavioral health clinicians
- Health navigators
- Operations and security
- Housing and workforce services
- Supportive services teams
Coming together week after week, often in challenging conditions, to de-escalate crises, connect people to care, and restore trust in systems that have historically failed our community. For many Roots members, Welcome Wednesday is their only consistent point of contact for healthcare and basic needs: a secure bridge back to a primary medical home.
Askia Muhammad, Director of Navigation Services at Roots, firmly believes that one measure of success at Welcome Wednesday is his team’s ability to respond to community members’ urgent needs.
Sometimes, a mother arrives with her children and shares that they are living in a car and need stable housing. In those moments, Askia and his team work quickly to secure services and ensure the family has a roof over their heads by the end of the day. When that happens, he considers it a successful outcome because something immediate and critical was addressed.
Askia notes that whether folks are coming in for resources, preventative care, or urgent needs, there is “no wrong door” to Roots. That early connection, he says, sets the foundation for healthy engagement and enduring community relationships that are grounded in trust.
100% of participants receive referrals to ongoing primary care, behavioral health, or health navigation
In today’s climate, the demand for a dedicated open-access space continues to grow. At the same time, public systems face increasing strain from homelessness, aging populations, and reentry needs. Investing in Welcome Wednesday is not only a moral imperative, it is a fiscally responsible strategy. Every dollar invested upstream in coordinated, community-centered care has the potential to offset far greater downstream costs in emergency services, hospitalization, and incarceration.
Welcome Wednesday is a proven, scalable model that aligns with local government priorities around health equity, homelessness response, and cost containment. With sustained public investment, we can stabilize and expand this program to meet growing demand, ensuring that our most vulnerable neighbors receive care before crisis, not after.