Aliria Muñoz, a nursing professor at ASU, talks to a patient at the inaugural S.H.O.W. Health Fair for the Homeless in Phoenix, Sept. 13, 2014. S.H.O.W., short for Student Health Outreach for Wellness, coordinated the event with Maricopa Integrated Health Systems to provide health services to Phoenix's homeless population. (Photo by Ben Moffat)
Several steady lines of people formed Saturday afternoon inside the Human Services Campus in Phoenix to get free health screenings and learn about health services during Health Fair for the Homeless.
The event aimed to showcase the services and programming that will be available at the SHOW clinic, scheduled to open for the homeless community this fall, as well as to educate people about the opportunities that are already present in the community.
Finance junior Sukhi Singh, a volunteer coordinator for the event, said often people experiencing homelessness don’t know where to go, so the event was created to educate them about the available resources.
“It’s important for the homeless to know what resources they have,” he said. “We are here to show them where to go and tell them they do have support.”
Hundreds of homeless and underserved people filled the campus to get health screenings including dental and foot care, vaccinations, hearing and vision testing, and pregnancy testing.
Alongside receiving health services, people eagerly approached vendors to take fresh T-shirts and water bottles and patiently waited in lines to get free lunch.
With a bag full of free things acquired at the fair, Gerald, a homeless man, said he came to check out the information and get his health screenings.
“It’s good when people get access (to health services)," he said.
The event was organized by SHOW, which stands for Student Health Outreach for Wellness. It is a student-led organization that seeks to provide free clinical care and health education for people experiencing homelessness in Phoenix.
Maricopa Integrated Health System, Healthcare for the Homeless, Central Arizona Shelter Services and other organizations collaborated with S.H.O.W. to give a helping hand to the homeless community as students were running all majority of the health screenings.
The student-run and separately licensed SHOW clinic will open this fall to provide healthcare to the homeless on the weekends, regardless of their insurance, expanding the accessibility of health care.
Clinical associate professor Pamela Thompson is the chair of SHOW, which unites about 150 students and 30 faculty members from ASU, UA and NAU under one umbrella. She said the clinic will be able to close the gap in service on the weekend.
By integrating students with medical backgrounds and students who have business, law and media focused interests, SHOW is better able to address diverse needs of the homeless people.
“The group of individuals that we are serving, people experiencing homelessness, have diverse needs in a number of challenges that they are facing,” Thompson said. “So we obviously recognize that we should take a diverse group in disciplines of students to address all of those needs.”
The theme of the event was ‘mind, body, soul’ to accentuate SHOW's holistic view of health, that’s not limited to physical state of being. People were encouraged to participate in one of the yoga, meditation or hypnotherapy classes to come to grips with their spiritual health.
Chanting “push, push, push” as one of the visitors was vigorously doing push-ups to energetic beats, a fitness instructor for Revelation Fitness Rachel Hartman tried to create an engaging and relaxed atmosphere at her class, she said.
“It’s important to bring (the homeless) joy and movement, make them smile and create an atmosphere for them to let loose,” she said.
In the future SHOW will focus on offering not only clinical services, but also health assessment, wellness promotion and health prevention services to the homeless community.
Lindsey Roberts, Central Arizona Shelter Services communication manager, said the fair was a fun way to introduce health services of the SHOW clinic to 1100 clients that are served at human services campus every day.
By taking care of their health, the organization creates basic conditions for the homeless to live their lives, she said.
“Our health has really a wide impact on our ability to work, to be happy, to be lucid, and to be able to wake up each morning and move our lives forward,” she said. “So by addressing this issue we are empowering these men and women who are experiencing homelessness in the Phoenix area,” she said.
Eneida Shqalsi, kinesiology senior and a student director for SHOW, invested a lot of effort and time into putting the event together by facilitating the connection between all the partners. She was pleasantly surprised to find out how many people wanted to help, she said.
“It’s really opened up my perception to how many people do want to work and help the underserved,” she said. “It’s so heart-warming.”
Shqalsi said SHOW has opened her eyes to the problem of homelessness, to which health is the key determinant.
“We can use our talents and services and time to help people that are experiencing the most horrible health disparities,” she said. “If we can go in and help with their health by providing opportunities and resources to feel better, and it might hopefully alleviate the problem. “
Reach the reporter at kmaryaso@asu.edu or follow on Twitter @KseniaMaryasova
