Community Service

Suitcase Clinic: Students in Action

Berkeley students, long dedicated to community service, are caring for the local homeless population, one bare footstep at a time. Who can say which is more useful — washing feet or lending an ear?

By Bonnie Azab Powell

Third-year environmental studies and architecture major Anne Bozack performs one of the Suitcase Clinic’s most popular services. (Bonnie Azab Powell photo)

Summer 2006 | On a chilly Tuesday night, about 40 homeless and low-income men and a couple of women are lined up outside the First Presbyterian Church in Berkeley. They are waiting for the doors to open at 7 p.m. for the Suitcase Clinic, an all-volunteer medical- and social-services operation run by Berkeley undergraduates with help from graduate students and local practitioners.

Once inside, they grab free bagels and coffee and quickly settle into another line, this one of chairs, as Suitcase coordinators write down their names and which services they hope to receive that night. “I come for the chiropractor: he straightens me out and makes me feel more balanced,” explains John, a thin, bleary-eyed man who cheerfully discloses that he’s schizophrenic. “And because I love talking to the students,” he adds before meandering off to do just that. (John’s name, and that of other Suitcase Clinic clients, have been changed or omitted to protect their privacy.)

Photos top to bottom: Nancy Nguyen, an anthropology major, fills shampoo bottles for free hygiene kits; law student Abe Gardner provides legal advice; General Clinic staff Jena Desai, Christina Chun, and Natalie Khorochev coordinate services on their shift; and volunteer barber Ross Robinson, who first came for legal advice, returns to share his own skills. (Bonnie Azab Powell photos)

Another client, who says he is “nobody important, just a guy trying to get himself together,” waits for a free haircut from one of Suitcase’s volunteer barbers. A quiet, well-spoken redhead visits Suitcase “to share, hear, and express ideas. And to have a chiropractic and get my feet washed.”

The students themselves are drawn by less tangible things. “It’s a unique opportunity to talk to people who under normal circumstances you might not,” says Nancy Nguyen, a fourth-year anthropology major.

The volunteers’ motivation seems to boil down to something very simple. “I really enjoy just showing up and knowing there’s a possibility I could help someone,” says Jake Becker, a third-year biochemistry and religious studies major who helps coordinate Suitcase’s Monday Youth Clinic.

Foot-washing and chiropractor services are among the most popular offerings of the Suitcase Clinic. Depending on which local health volunteers are available to work alongside them, the students also provide basic health-care checkups, vision screening, dental care, legal advice, social work, and a discussion group at the General Clinic on Tuesdays.

Public service tradition
Berkeley students are known for their commitment to public service — more than a third of undergraduates volunteer in the community during the school year, and another 10 percent perform community service for pay or course credit. The Cal Corps Public Service Center, the campus unit that coordinates and supports student public-service opportunities, oversees dozens of community programs, from tutoring and mentoring projects to Cal Habitat for Humanity, a house-building organization.

But even in this impressive group, the Suitcase Clinic stands out for its longevity, scope, and level of commitment. Founded in 1989 by first-year students in the Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program as a mobile clinic that would travel directly to homeless clients, the program was named for the suitcases in which the medical students carried their supplies. Eventually, those supplies were transported in a donated van; when the van broke down, the students moved for good into First Presbyterian.

Undergraduates helped develop the clinic initially and soon took over its administration. “We run the show,” says Jena Desai, one of three General Clinic coordinators and a fourth-year public health and biochemistry double major. “People are amazed that we can do it all.”

Full services, all free
This Tuesday night, First Presbyterian is a hive of frenetic activity. Most Suitcase guests are milling around talking to the volunteers. Once their names are called, clients are greeted by a student caseworker, who sits with them to record or update a basic social and medical history before helping them navigate the services being offered in various rooms. For example, upstairs a medical student from the Berkeley-UCSF joint program is giving basic health consultations and dispensing over-the-counter medications, while a graduate student from the School of Optometry performs preliminary eye examinations. (Those who need glasses are then scheduled for a full exam on the Berkeley campus; frames are donated and the lenses subsidized by the Suitcase Clinic.) One Suitcase undergraduate is walking clients over to a dental clinic a few blocks away.

Back downstairs in the large main room, an undergraduate “client advocate for residence and employment” staffs the “CARE” station, providing housing and food referrals, helping clients compose résumés on her laptop, and looking at job listings. Nguyen is handing out hygiene kits with soap, a razor, shampoo, toothpaste, and dental floss to anyone who asks.

Foot washing
Nearby, two students crouch over plastic tubs in which they are gently washing bare feet. As they pumice away calluses and clip toenails before patting the appendages dry and handing over clean, donated socks, they chat with their clients — that is, unless the happy recipient has fallen asleep.

The footwashing service is one of the most vital that the clinic performs, says Desai. “Many of our clients are on their feet or walking for most of the day. They don’t get to take showers very often or change their socks.” With a smile, she adds, “Mainly, clients love to talk, and they’re a lot more comfortable doing it when someone is washing their feet.”

One of the amateur pedicurists is wearing a black sweatshirt printed with the famous Mahatma Gandhi command — “Be the change you want to see in the world” — that has inspired activists everywhere.

“Sometimes I feel discouraged because it seems like a lot of Band-Aid work, and I wonder why we can’t make more of a difference in this person’s life,” Desai admits. “But someone once told me not to look at it as, ‘Let’s get everyone off the streets.’ We have to help them in the way they need. And we do that.”