BUFFALO, N.Y. — For students in the UB Heals organization at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, Tuesdays and Thursdays are about helping those around them.  

“This community loves to rally around each other, but there’s a lot of times where we forget about the entirety of the community, including those that are in these vulnerable situations,” said Reid Minier, call manager for UB Heals.

“UB Heals is a street medicine outreach program and specifically we are focused on engaging with the unhoused community where they are,” added program manager Miles LaNicca. 

What You Need To Know

  • New York state has the second largest population of people experiencing homelessness throughout the nation, according to World Population Review
  • Students from the University at Buffalo work every month to help those in need by passing out food and supplies 
  • The students bring as many supplies as they can to the bus station every week, but with so many experiencing homelessness, the supply never meets the demand

Loading up the car is the easy part.

“We go to the Ellicott Street bus station from 7 to 8 a.m. depending on how many people are there and how many people we can help,” said Minier.

Then they get to work, connecting those in the community who are experiencing homelessness with the things they need.

“We have medications in here - we have pregnancy tests, UTI tests, anti-fungal creams in there,” Minier said.

“We have like women’s underwear, men's underwear, sweatpants, hoodies,” said Zipporah Barrett, supply manager for UB Heals.

And more importantly, the resources people experiencing homelessness need.

“We have hygiene products," Minier said. "We have clothing and the medications and those are all wonderful resources that we have to be able to give out. But we want to use that as a stepping stone to move into more vulnerable conversations like, have you been able to see a doctor, would you like to be connected with a doctor?"

“There is a really big issue with people getting resources and people having things to survive on," Barrett said. "I think a lot of people really rely on our organization every Tuesday [and] Thursday."

They are helping to combat the issue of houselessness one day at a time.

“Houselessness is a really big issue in the United States as a whole and I think what we're trying to do is bridge the gap,” Barrett said.

“You might see someone on your walk to work every morning and that person may be experiencing homelessness,” said LaNicca. 

They are learning more about their community and themselves in the process.

“The empathy, it really allows you to be able to relate to people’s stories even if you haven’t been in the same situation as them,” said Barrett. 

“Definitely more appreciative of when I’m having a difficult day, it's not even close to the difficulties that some of these individuals are experiencing,”  Minier said.