To understand Mimi’s passion and vision for the Safe Haven Clinic Institute, you need to know where she came from.

Mimi’s Mother, Ursula, was born in Germany in 1934. When she was 5 years old she and her parents fled leaving behind most of her family, many of whom were murdered in Nazi concentration camps. Ursula escaped to South America and then arrived in the United States in the 1950s, but she could never truly escape her past. The trauma of her war experiences and of becoming a child refugee haunted her.

By the time Mimi was 6 years old, her parents were divorced and her mother had custody of Mimi. Despite her father buying her mother a house, her mother’s history of trauma drove them into homelessness. Mimi hated being homeless. When her father rescued her she promised herself that when she grew up she would do something so other kids wouldn’t have to experience homelessness like she did.

Mimi received her PhD in molecular biology from University of California Santa Barbara, and her MD from Stanford University. She had all but forgotten the promise she made as a 6 year old in the homeless camp. Until 1997, when she saw Dr. Jim Withers speak about Street Medicine, and the movement he was working to energize. Street Medicine, providing health care to the unsheltered homeless where they live, was the path towards healing homelessness that Mimi was waiting for.

Mentored by Dr. Jim Withers, Mimi founded Doctors Without Walls-Santa Barbara Street Medicine (DWW-SBSM) in September 2005.

While Mimi is no longer formally affiliated with DWW, she is proud that the founding mission continues today: to provide free, volunteer medical care for the most vulnerable, when and where they are in need, including in times of disaster.

DWW continues to be closely affiliated with, the International Street Medicine Collaborative. This important Street Medicine affiliation enables DWW to study and implement best-practices, network globally, and advocate for those they serve.

Doctors Without Walls-1st Street Team, 2005. Photo credit: Paul Wellman

Doctors Without Walls Team, 2009

In 2015 Mimi Founded Ukiah Valley Street Medicine and Mendocino County Coast Street Medicine for Adventist Health (AH) Ukiah in collaboration with Whole Person Care program of Mendocino County.

The Adventist Health Ukiah Valley Street Medicine program takes preventative and urgent care medicine to homeless individuals around their community.

In 2018 Mimi was selected as a California Health Care Foundation (CHCF) health care leaders fellow. Her California Health Improvement Project (CHIP) was the Safe Haven Clinic Institute (CHIP Cohort 18). SHCI is an expansion of the Street Medicine vision. The vision of this institute strives to tackle the seemingly intractable co-occurring epidemics of  homelessness and addiction in California.

The Safe Haven Clinic Institute work has been generously supported by the Arlene and Michael Rosen Foundation from 2019-21. We became a non profit corporation of the State of California in 2021 and in summer of 2022 we filed for federal 501c3 status.

The Safe Haven Clinic Institute has helped a wonderful grass roots organization start a Street Medicine program by organizing a musical event to raise awareness and funds (www.borderhealthrocks.com). We’ve worked with University of California San Diego medical students to create our mission and vision statements while teaching them about Street Medicine. We are working closely with communities to collaborate towards their locally designed clinical innovations for the co-occurring epidemics/syndemics of  homelessness and addiction.