• Project Title: Sources for Success: Closing the Healthcare Access Gap

  • BASIS Advisor: Dr. Vervoort

  • Internship Location: Stanford University

  • Onsite Mentor: Dr. Julieta Gabiola

An issue that homeless individuals face is the lack of access to healthcare. In an attempt to successfully address this issue, we need to figure out the reasons for this divide and identify what individuals experiencing homelessness have to say about their situation. I will spend a lot of time researching and collecting data from online web sources, library texts, and City Census Data, with guidance from my advisor at Stanford University. In order to target the lack of healthcare availability, I will interview people who experience homelessness and ask them how they feel about their healthcare situation. I will work with private companies and organizations to start a mobile health clinic in the Bay Area. When I gather my results, I expect to find that homeless individuals are not lazy, contrary to common misunderstanding, and that they have not been well-supported by the local governments. I will investigate if governmental programs such as shelters and the Affordable Care Act are not enough. We need to re-establish a long-lost trust, and I think it is crucial to shed light on an important social issue. My project can be used in the long run as a measure of where society was in 2019. I think the biggest issue is being able to put faith in an identity. The homeless won’t trust a doctor who comes after them with a needle. They need a friendship with someone whom they know will act in their best interests.