Curtis Memorial Library in collaboration with All Saints Parish presents the last installment of the Rough Sleepers Community Read & Program Series, featuring Dr. Jim O’Connell, president of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program and assistant professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. The event is at 5 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 18, at Curtis Memorial Library, 23 Pleasant St., Brunswick.
O’Connell is the central figure in Tracy Kidder’s book, “Rough Sleepers,” which “tells the story of Dr. Jim O’Connell, a gifted man who invented a community of care for a city’s unhoused population, including those who sleep on the streets,” according to publisher Penguin Random House.
The free library event features a talk by O’Connell, who, alongside his colleagues, founded the nation’s first medical respite program for homeless individuals in 1985. This initiative has since evolved into the 104-bed Barbara McInnis House, offering acute and sub-acute care, pre- and post-operative support, and palliative and end-of-life care.
O’Connell served as the national program director of the Homeless Families Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1989–1996. He is the editor of “The Health Care of Homeless Persons: A Manual of Communicable Diseases and Common Problems in Shelters and on the Streets” and has been featured in various media, including ABC’s Nightline and CBS Evening News.
For more information about this event, visit curtislibrary.libcal.com/event/11675896.
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