Two articles on today’s Madison.com featuring doctors and dentists who provide free health and dental care for the homeless. One features Grace member Ben Farrow. If you can pay for dental care, Ben practices at Monroe St. Family Dental.

The other article introduces us to HEALTH, brainchild of Drs. Cate and Erik Ranheim. This group offers free clinics at various places, including once a month at Grace Church.

They aren’t the only ones offering medical care at Grace. Every week, students from the University of Wisconsin Medical School offer a clinic.

I’m surprised again and again in my encounters with homeless people and others seeking help, by the serious medical conditions that many of them are dealing with. I’m told repeatedly by people that it was a medical catastrophe that landed them on the street. Others have chronic conditions that require medications. The efforts of these doctors and dentists, as praiseworthy as they are, can do little to respond to the enormous needs on the street.