Keynote Speaker:
James J. O’Connell, MD
President, Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Dr. O’Connell began full-time clinical work with homeless individuals as the founding physician of the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, which now serves over 10,000 homeless individuals and families each year through two hospital-based clinics, in 30 shelters and outreach sites, and on the streets of Boston.

With his colleagues, Dr. O’Connell established the nation’s first medical respite program for homeless persons in September 1985, with 25 beds in the Lemuel Shattuck Shelter. This innovative program now provides acute and sub-acute,
pre- and post-operative, and palliative and end-of-life care in the freestanding
104-bed Barbara McInnis House. Working with the MGH Laboratory of Computer Science, Dr. O’Connell designed and implemented the nation’s first computerized medical record for a homeless program in 1995.

Dr. O’Connell has 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. 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.

In 2023, Dr. O’Connell work was chronicled by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Tracy Kidder in Rough Sleepers, Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People.

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