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WHEREAS, Dr. Jim Withers began a life of compassion by making housecalls with his father, a family practitioner, in rural Pennsylvania. Dr. Withers went on to earn his undergraduate degree at Haverford College and later complete his medical school training at the University of Pittsburgh in 1984; and
WHEREAS, currently the Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Dr. Withers finished his residencies at Mercy Hospital of Pittsburgh and later joined the hospital's full-time faculty by teaching in the Department of Internal Medicine; and
WHEREAS, Dr. Withers began to provide care for Pittsburgh's unsheltered homeless population in 1992, and was the founding force behind Operation Safety Net, now operated through the Pittsburgh Mercy Health System, which is dedicated to providing people who are homeless with critical medical services in whatever place they call home, whether that is on riverbanks, under bridges, or in alleyways; and
WHEREAS, Operation Safety Net has provided this care to over 10,000 people in the last two decades and worked to transition over 1,200 people into housing; and
WHEREAS, he has established the Street Medicine Institute, which is part of a global movement of giving people living on the streets direct access to medicine, and has successfully launched programs on four continents; and
WHEREAS, he has organized a regularly occurring "International Street Medicine Symposia", focused on spreading street medicine to other communities in need and particularly in encouraging the next generation of medical personnel to focus on assisting the least privileged in society; and
WHEREAS, in recognition of this unflagging compassion and dedication to improving the lives of people who are homeless in Pittsburgh, nationally, and globally, CNN has distinguished Dr. Jim Withers as a 2015 "Hero of the Year".
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NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Council of the City of Pittsburgh does...
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