Health Care for People on the Edge of the World

A Clinic on a Fresno Bus Helps IV Drug Users Deal With Infections

Dan, age 33, woke up one late summer Saturday in Fresno, California with pain in his left buttock.

Dan is tall, good-looking, and dresses neatly in long shorts, with white socks pulled up, stark white sneakers, and a stylish trucker hat. He has a stoic face and from looking at him I didn’t guess that he was in pain, or that he had an IV drug habit. On the previous Tuesday he’d gone to the jail on a warrant but when the jail’s nurse saw the red abscess—the cause of …

The Dump Next Door

Avenal Residents Survey Each Other to Understand How the Town Dump Is Affecting Their Lives

When you’ve lived in a town for a long time, you have the idea that everyone thinks and knows the same things because we all live in the same little …

I Had to Go to Finland to Imagine How to Fix Fresno

Fresno's Obsession with Self-Reliance Is Not Helping Its Drug Problems, but Its Volunteer Needle Exchange Is

I grew up Fresno, but I fled as fast as I could. With its agriculturalist roots, the local political culture was narrated through the lens of rugged individualist ideals and …

Helping the Child Who Got Left Behind

Rebuilding L.A.'s Foster Care System to Really Care for Kids

Neither the foster care clinic room nor my teen patient was typical. The ocean-blue walls were covered with a marine mural with a Rastafarian sea god on one wall and …

A Hungry Child Cannot Learn

Buying Shoes, Growing Lettuce, and Treating Tooth Decay at a San Bernardino Elementary School

Eric had multiple cavities and several abscesses. His younger sister Madeline was not in much better shape.

“He has something wrong with each tooth,” the dental student said in amazement. “He …