Raise $20B for free clinics

My name is Dr. Ben Bergman.

For 20 years, I have been practicing medicine in the US, and I have noticed certain patterns. First, there are plenty of places where people can get care, but there are not effective safety net systems able to absorb 800,000 homeless people. Some areas do better than others. City centers typically have shelter systems and more advanced housing services. In New York City, some 60,000 people live in shelters every single night, and roughly 200,000 people are homeless. Across the county, in more rural areas, a combination of non-profit housing charities, low income housing, hotels, and shelters attempts to house those who need it, but I have first hand in the last 2 years seen many cases of women, those with medical issues, and those who live on the boundary of being on and off homeless, simply not have enough resources to make a recovery.

Second, healthcare systems, which should excel at this, have had partial success in building safety net systems, but have largely failed. The medical care is excellent, when people are in a hospital and under the care of a medical team. At other times, well let’s just say things fall apart pretty quickly, due to transportation problems, access problems, economic factors, lack of will power, and health system fragmentation.

So, in regards to those who lack housing, adequate medical care, and lack a safe trajectory to recovery, well simply nothing has really changed in my observations over the last 20-25 years. There are simply not enough affordable housing options or even short term housing options, to solve the problem, and there are not enough available supportive services to allow most people to recover and regain a stable life.

Because of this, about 2 years ago I decided to try to do something about it.

I started a charity fundraiser to raise money for my local Free Clinic, where I volunteer, designed a tech product to help coordinate care, and raised $5,000. With that money, we purchased enough phones to distribute the technology through the Free Clinic, and coordinated with a housing charity in northern NJ to treat patients with free care, technology, combined with housing provided by the housing charity.

The first 3 months or so was getting to know the clients/patients. The next few months was solving medical problems - diabetes, hypertension, mental health issues.

Then we move into chats about reasons for homelessness. Many patients have histories of medical disabilities, abuse, violence, mental health issues, substance use disorder. Many times these underlying issues are caused by homelessness, and many times they are the cause of the homelessness. Debt often causes homelessness, because housing prices are extremely high.

So essentially it was a huge learning experience.

Which brings us to where we are today. Housing.

We have a huge housing cost deficit in this country. My estimate is $20B per year for 5 years, or $100B.

With this fundraising goal in mind, and using the knowledge of physicians and the healthcare system, we have a plan to end homelessness. It's a moonshot, but it's doable.

And thus Product|Blue was born.

Product|Blue is my attempt to raise enough money, using cause marketing, to raise money to solve homelessness. Included in that plan is enough money to invest in housing, healthcare facilities such as rehab centers, and non-profit investment to invest in people's lives, and recover the damage done by many years of neglect to human beings that are honestly some of the most needy and kind people I have ever met.

I know homeless people that have lived in their cars for years on end, and when they finally get jobs, some of them use their first pay check to help others. Some of them wants jobs helping others, to help end homelessness.

Working together, with enough goodwill and money, the problem can be solved. Many other countries have done this, there is no reason we cannot do it in the US. It simply requires time and investment.


Will you help us by purchasing a tee shirt or donate, help us raise the starter funds, and help get it started?