Circle the City

Circle the City is a Phoenix-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit and Federally Qualified Health Center that provides healthcare to people experiencing homelessness across Maricopa County, Arizona. Founded in 2012 by Sister Adele O'Sullivan, CSJ, MD, the organisation opened Arizona's first medical respite centre for people without housing. It serves more than 8,000 individuals a year and states a vision of a healthy community without homelessness.

The work is delivered through several distinct programmes. Two medical respite programmes, with 50 beds each, care for adults recovering from acute illness or injury, providing daily medical attention, meals, case management and a place to heal. Two outpatient clinics offer primary, preventive, behavioural and recuperative care. Five mobile medical units and five street medicine teams operate in shelters, transitional housing, streets, parks, river bottoms, canals and other locations that conventional clinics do not reach. A Hospital Health Navigator Programme connects individuals facing homelessness with care through hospital-based navigation.

Roles span clinical, care coordination and community-facing work: street medicine and mobile health, outpatient primary and preventive care, behavioural health, medical respite nursing and recuperative care, case management and care coordination. The organisation describes its approach as meeting people where they are, including in hard-to-reach locations, and emphasises innovative healthcare solutions for a population with complex needs.