The ICT Street Team started a paramedic on-site at United Methodist Open Door last year after years of it being an emergency hot-spot.
By Stefania Lugli / The Journal
When The Journal arrived to interview Mandy Griffin and Jon Piper at United Methodist Open Door one recent morning, a man was resting in their office in the homeless services center. The man, their patient, was recovering from seizures he had the hour prior.
He was quiet, dazed and sitting on a chair, fidgety hands wrapped around a water bottle as Griffin and Piper carried on a one-sided conversation with him, filling the silence with encouraging words and playful banter.
Griffin and Piper make up the full-time staff of the ICT Street Team, a mobile health care unit that treats homeless patients. Griffin is the director of operations and Piper the clinical care coordinator. The group is known for reliably hosting outdoor clinics – rain, shine or freeze – and in 2023, established a permanent office at Open Door. Piper, a former paramedic, started in January 2024.
Since then, calls for emergency medical services there have plummeted by half. Homeless patients are getting quicker care from familiar faces and avoiding hospital bills. Ambulances are freed up, saving taxpayers thousands of dollars.
Open Door usually serves lunch to around 150 people, but client traffic ebbs and flows throughout the day. Many clients don’t come in every day, a common characteristic of a transient population. Despite that, Piper and Griffin know the names, faces and medical conditions of most regulars.
The man sitting in their office this morning, for example, has a known history of seizures. He lacks regular access to medicine that regulates them.
“We know who he is; we know his history. We know he’s without his meds. We also know that the hospital is really going to do nothing other than watch him while he’s posting,” said Piper, referring to the period of confusion and exhaustion after a seizure. “They’ll wait for him to come out of the woods, tell him to get his script and send him on his way.”
Piper’s training, his familiarity with the patient and his medical history saved the homeless man from running up a hospital bill he couldn’t pay. Piper’s presence also saved an ambulance from being taken offline from other calls and an emergency room bed.
The other benefit this patient received? A free refill of his seizure medication, in his backpack within an hour of his attack.
‘Having them here has saved lives’
Josh Watkins, the homeless services director at Open Door, invited Griffin and her team in after realizing the full depth of the chaotic environment he was in charge of.
“There was a lot of 911 calls. There was a lot of fighting. It was bad. Now, you can walk out there and be safe. I’m not concerned about people’s safety inside the facility anymore,” Watkins said.
“One of the single, best things I’ve ever done here, being the director, is getting them here. That’s without a doubt,” he said. “There’s no data point for this, but I guarantee having them here has saved lives.”
According to the county, the average cost of a medical call for EMS is $531.39. When comparing call numbers, the ICT Street Team’s presence at Open Door saved an estimated $50,000-plus in expenses over a year.
The team offers primary healthcare services, first aid, wound care, prescription and over the counter medications, IV fluids and the ability to assess a medical case and determine the extent of a medical emergency. Several patients have diabetes or other chronic illnesses and fall ill when they run out of medication. Some of the immediate medical needs at Open Door are drug-related, but not always overdoses. K2, or synthetic marijuana, is a frequent problem because patients who use it often have unpredictable behavior, changes to mental function and in some cases, unconsciousness.
“Having somebody with the appropriate medical training can assess those, whereas without the proper training, you panic. Understandable,” Griffin said. “If somebody’s not responsive, you call 911. But when you know what to do, you can handle that situation for the next 30 minutes to an hour. In theory, some cases are like a light switch. Five minutes pass by and they’re up, fine and are like, ‘Leave me alone.’”
Piper added, “We’re not calling an ambulance based strictly on somebody being unresponsive. … if I can’t get their oxygen saturation up or they’re not adequately breathing. Then it’s an emergency.”
This is where the team’s limitations arise. While Piper, Griffin and the team’s volunteers help optimize an overburdened system, there are limits to their medical intervention. They can’t prevent every EMS call – some cases are too severe to maintain on-site.
The Journal’s interview was cut short when an ambulance was called because a client had a stroke. Piper and Griffin rushed to the patient, but strokes and cardiac arrests are beyond their scope.
When The Journal returned another day with a photographer, a man was outside Open Door being strapped into a gurney. Piper helped the paramedics lift him into the ambulance. He suspected that the man was unconscious from K2, which he usually can monitor, but when he and Griffin found him, the man was repeatedly hitting his head against the concrete sidewalk.
“Once they start becoming a harm to themselves or others, that’s an ambulance call,” Piper said.
Including health care at Wichita’s future MAC
The ICT Street Team has permanent office space at Open Door and is on-site every day it’s open, but it also has a presence at the emergency winter shelter and outdoor clinics in locations where there’s a dense homeless population.
The winter shelter – which will flip to a 24/7 city-operated shelter on April 1 – lacks a clinic and full-time medical services. Organizations such as the ICT Street Team and Hunter Health between them provide basic care and prescription care, but a gap remains.
The shelter on North Main has had 631 EMS calls since opening Thanksgiving weekend. January peaked with 213 calls – an average of over six calls a day or over $3,000 worth of county services per day (not including ambulance runs to a hospital).
Plans for Wichita’s future multi-agency center, where the shelter resides, are yet to be finalized. The nonprofit operating it, MAC Board Inc., told The Journal in an email it intends to include health care providers in construction and services planning, but did not commit to having a permanent clinic or medical care team on-site.
“A collaborative health care solution is one of the top priorities, and planning is underway for every phase of the construction of the MAC,” the statement read.
For Watkins, the director at Open Door, the choice to have a comprehensive medical service at the MAC is obvious.
“If I was running the MAC, I would want every community partner that does medical health, mental health, any of it, in that facility without question,” he said.
Watkins praised the ICT Street Team for its care of Open Door’s clients.
“It’s been 100% positive since they got here. The other things they can do is help get meds. Like, if somebody is missing psychotropics or needs seizure medicine, they can fill it. When you’re homeless, stuff gets stolen all the time. Medicine goes missing. We have people with diabetes, and now they’re able to get that medicine. They’re here and they’re able to get that stuff on the quick. There’s no quick way for a homeless person to get medicine.”
Piper was previously a paramedic with Sedgwick County, where he became familiar with the homeless and their health needs.
“People have a fear of homeless individuals. They have that reputation, on the streets, on the trucks,” he said. “Being able to come over here and have one-on-one with them, it’s twofold. I get to actually do things that are definitive for them, while also keeping them out of the potential of poor patient care because of the stigma of being homeless.”
Part of that stigma is the overlap between homelessness and substance use. It’s significant, and a real problem for providers to address, but it’s a health issue that should be treated with empathy, said Watkins.
“There’s a lot of people that think the homeless are sick … lazy. I’ll agree with the sick part. There’s a lot of people that have severe mental health issues. A lot of people that have addictions. It’s like a chicken or egg controversy – which came first? If you have schizophrenia and hear voices all the time, you don’t want to hear those voices. You can’t pay for help, you don’t have insurance. Well, it’s going to be methamphetamines. That quiets voices,” he said.
Piper and Griffin have the time to build personal relationships with Open Door patients. As Piper puts it, there’s no worry about a radio call sending them rushing to the next scene.
Many homeless people struggle to trust resources or service providers. It’s a hard life, being homeless, and one that can erode one’s faith in community. Often, newcomers reject the team’s offers of aid. Griffin said that the key to improving trust is consistency.
“Showing them we’re at the same place all the time, and just building that trust,” Griffin said. “Maybe we give them socks and bottled water and other supportive items and just slowly build that trust. Eventually they’re going to ask us for other things (like health care).”
Empathy, patience, training and a calm attitude has benefited the lives of hundreds of regulars at Open Door, like the seizure patient from that morning. He was taken care of as a sick person and not his housing status.
Piper said that he has a habit of telling everybody, “It’s good to see you,” and he really means it too.
He remembers with fondness a remark that one patient made not long after he started at Open Door.
As she was leaving, he said, “It was really good to see you.”
She replied: “It’s good to be seen and not viewed.”
Stefania Lugli is a reporter for The Journal, published by the Kansas Leadership Center. She focuses on covering issues related to homelessness in Wichita and across Kansas. Her stories are shared widely through the Wichita Journalism Collaborative.
This article was republished here with the permission of: KLC Journal