‘Game changer’: A new mobile medical clinic serves unhoused

By Grace Chinowsky • Photos by Isaac Wasserman • May 21, 2026

[This story was originally published in Lookout Eugene-Springfield.]

White Bird Clinic launched a new mobile medical clinic in partnership with a local homeless services provider on Tuesday, May 19, expanding a street-level model designed to bring health care directly to unhoused patients.

The mobile clinic will operate at Community Supported Shelters’ street outreach office on West 11th Avenue every Tuesday from 1 to 4 p.m., offering primary care, wound treatment, lab work and medication management for people who rely on Community Supported Shelters. 

It builds on White Bird’s first mobile operation at St. Vincent de Paul’s Schlies Resource Center along Highway 99, which operates on Fridays and recently hit its one-year anniversary. The model helps patients overcome the obstacles that prevent them from receiving vital care, staff said.

“A lot of these people haven’t seen a doctor for 10 to 15 years, and there’s a lot of barriers with trauma to go into a clinic,” Sarah Austin, White Bird’s medical clinic manager, told Lookout Eugene-Springfield. “We can bring the medical out to them and not require them to come in.”

Moving toward answers

It’s a lean operation. A team of three or four White Bird employees — a nurse practitioner, one or two medical assistants, and a medical receptionist — work out of a van outfitted with medical equipment parked in a gravel lot. 

Patients filled out paperwork under a nearby white tent next to tables lined with snacks, water and to-go bags of basic hygiene items and supplies, part of White Bird’s efforts to build trust and visibility with potential new patients. 

On top of “point of care” testing like nasal swabs and basic urine screens, the clinic will draw blood on site, speeding up lab work that previously required patients to schedule and travel to separate appointments, nurse practitioner Justin Styles said.

“Not only will I have actionable data coming up faster, but I think for the patients, it’s a huge thing to know that they’re actually moving towards answers, more than just a plan for answers,” Styles said. 

Meeting people where they are

The new clinic is primarily intended for the existing client base at Community Supported Shelters, but anyone nearby in need of care can stop by, said White Bird executive director Amèe Markwardt. Patients tend to interact with mobile clinics more than White Bird’s brick-and-mortar clinic on Mill Street, Styles added.

“It was a nice alignment of a need of a community agency and availability of services,” Styles said. “Without a doubt, coming out to where the people are, I will often have more patient contacts at our mobile clinic sites than I do in-clinic, even if I have a fully scheduled day.”

Staff aren’t discouraged when patients refuse services, as those conversations still offer them an opportunity to inform a patient about their medical needs and make a plan for the future, he said. If he needs to send a patient to an emergency room, he walks patients through what to expect when they arrive, Styles said.

A young man named Sean, who declined to provide his last name to Lookout, was among the new patients who stopped by the mobile clinic on Tuesday. He said he’s often in the area due to its proximity to Community Supported Shelters’ street outreach office and the Eugene BottleDrop Redemption Center. 

Sean said he has been looking for a new primary care provider for years. His battle with addiction, which began at age 16, has “taken its toll” on his health, he said. He spoke of others who have gotten “fingers chopped off” because they lacked proper and timely wound care.

“It will be a game changer for a lot of people,” Sean said. “It really will.”

Read the rest of the story on Lookout Eugene-Springfield for free here.

You Gotta Nourish to Flourish

All donations to the Community Supported Shelters Nourish Fund will be directed toward nourishing the lives of unhoused individuals through employment prep, peer-led support groups, arts entrepreneurship, and more.