Atrium Health Launches Care Everywhere Street Medicine Project to Reach People Experiencing Homelessness
Recurring outreach teams bring care directly to encampments and outdoor sites across Charlotte
CHARLOTTE, N.C., June 3, 2026 – Atrium Health has launched the Atrium Health Care Everywhere Street Medicine Project, a new initiative designed to deliver medical care directly to people experiencing unsheltered homelessness across the Charlotte region.
People experiencing unsheltered homelessness often face barriers that make access to traditional health care difficult. Challenges such as lack of transportation, limited access to identification or insurance, and past negative experiences with institutions often prevent people from seeking care until medical needs become urgent.
The Care Everywhere Street Medicine Project addresses these challenges through scheduled, recurring outreach in the locations where people are already living. Teams led by physicians from Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center Department of Emergency Medicine conduct consistent, on-site visits to known encampments, delivering care directly where patients reside rather than from a traditional clinic.
The care provided is comprehensive and immediate, ranging from dispensing medications for chronic conditions so patients leave with them physically in hand, to performing point-of-care testing, such as for urinary tract infections, to delivering wound care in the field. In parallel, the program partners with Roof Above, a Charlotte based nonprofit that provides street outreach, shelter and housing services for people experiencing homelessness, to help connect patients with critical community resources and longer-term support. This regular, on the ground presence fosters trust over time and helps create continuity of care.
“This program is about showing up, consistently, in the places where people already are," said Dr. Cortlyn Brown, medical director of the Atrium Health Care Everywhere Street Medicine Project and an associate professor of emergency medicine at Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center. "By removing common barriers and being a reliable presence, we are able to connect with people who might otherwise remain disconnected from the health care system."
The Care Everywhere Street Medicine Project focuses on addressing acute and chronic medical needs, supporting long-term health outcomes, and helping patients navigate connections to additional medical and social resources.
In addition to patient care, the program serves as a training and learning environment for clinicians and trainees, reinforcing Atrium Health’s commitment to community centered, compassionate care.
“At its core, this work is about dignity,” Dr. Brown said. “Every person deserves access to care and to be treated with respect, and that does not change based on where someone sleeps at night. This program lets us deliver on that commitment in a way that actually reaches people.”
To learn more about Atrium Health Care Everywhere Street Medicine Project, visit www.atriumhealth.org/community/everywhere-street-medicine-project.
Media Contact: media@advocatehealth.org
About Atrium Health
Atrium Health is advancing clinical care and research across the communities it serves by redefining care for all. The care network is anchored by Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center, an academic medical center in Charlotte that includes Levine Children’s Hospital, Levine Cancer Institute and Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute, along with 11 hospitals, more than 900 care locations and over 1,400 physicians serving communities across the greater Charlotte region. It is part of Charlotte, North Carolina-based Advocate Health, the third-largest nonprofit, integrated health system in the United States. Advocate Health is a preeminent academic health system at the forefront of clinical excellence, innovation and research, with Wake Forest University School of Medicine serving as its academic core. Nationally recognized for expertise in heart and vascular, neurosciences, oncology, pediatrics and rehabilitation, Advocate Health is also a pioneer in the delivery of virtual health care. It’s accelerating discovery by making research participation part of the standard-of-care through its one-of-a-kind National Center for Clinical Trials. Advocate Health has one of the nation’s largest graduate medical education programs, with an experiential learning focus and specialized residencies to help protect the long-term sustainability of rural health care in America. Each campus of the school of medicine has an affiliated life-sciences focused innovation district: The Pearl, in Charlotte, and Innovation Quarter, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. With more than 165,000 teammates serving patients at 69 hospitals and over 1,000 care locations across eight states, Advocate Health reinvests over $6 billion each year to improve community health, making it one of the nation’s largest providers of community benefit.