An Orthodox Christian group is threatening to sue the city of Phoenix over a controversial new ordinance it passed last month that bans groups from providing medical care and food to the homeless in city parks — unless they have one of two permits that will be available for it per month in some parks.
St. Herman’s Table, a ministry of Exaltation of the Holy Cross Orthodox Church, is asking a judge to issue a temporary restraining order to stop the city from enforcing the new law.
But they’re not the only ones who took issue with the city over this decision. When the City Council passed the law in early May, it was after a seven-hour meeting in which they heard from a host of residents — including Sister Adele O'Sullivan.
"Mayor Gallego and members of the council, my name is Sister Adele O'Sullivan. I started Circle the City to take care of our dear neighbors on the streets of Phoenix. I appreciate your stewardship of our city and your attempts to listen to your constituents. I'm asking you please to remember that persons experiencing homelessness are your constituents as well," Sister Adele O'Sullivan said.
O’Sullivan is the founder of Circle the City, which provides healthcare to the homeless. In fact, you could call her Dr. Sister Adele O’Sullivan — because she is the first sister in her order’s long history to become a doctor.
She was a pharmacist, but she told me, she saw the need and wanted to do more. The Show sat down with her in our studios recently to talk more about her story, her work and the city’s new ordinance.
The Show also reached out to the City of Phoenix’s Office of Homeless Solutions. They sent us a statement saying they’re committed to helping people experiencing homelessness and connecting them with the sources they need — “while also keeping our parks safe, clean and available for all our residents.”
The city points out it has invested more in shelter, outreach and affordable housing than any other city in the state — including adding more than 1200 shelter beds and 300 Safe Outdoor Spaces since 2022. Phoenix calls on the state, county and federal government to work toward long-term solutions “that truly end homelessness.”
In response to the pending litigation filed by the founder of St. Herman’s Table, the city told us they intend to defend against it: “We believe our ordinance is lawful.”
Full conversation
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: I asked to go to medical school to take care of the poor, and I had a number of wonderful experiences around the state. I did some sort of rural-type medicine in Cochise County. I worked at the Arizona State Hospital for a couple of years.
But I was working out in El Mirage, taking care of a kind of a semi-rural population, when I got a phone call one day. It was 1996. They need a doctor to go to the Maricopa County Healthcare for the Homeless clinic on 12th Avenue and Madison. Would you go?
And I had been down there to substitute, so I knew the situation there. And I thought, well, there is no poorer place in Arizona, and made the decision to go.
LAUREN GILGER: So, that's what got you into working with the people who are experiencing homelessness?
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: Once I got there, I couldn't see that and forget and go back.
LAUREN GILGER: What was it about those people that you met treating them that day, that week maybe, when you first started? Do you remember any of them?
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: Oh, very well. It was being in those exam rooms listening to those stories, such resilience, such amazing strength through obstacles that most of us will never in our lives have to face. And as a doctor, I wanted so much to be able to care for the whole person, the medical, physical needs, the emotional, the behavioral healthcare needs, the spiritual needs, the the simple things we take for granted.
I remember early on learning underwear was a luxury. Now, you know, when do we think about that? When do we think about how a simple thing like a pair of glasses enables you to open the doors to applying for benefits, to seeing what bus is coming down the street, to — it's so many things I wanted to be able to do for the people in those exam rooms.
LAUREN GILGER: So, this led you to founding Circle the City some years later, right? And this is not a Catholic organization, this is a nonprofit that's much more inclusive than that. Tell us about about your decision to start the the clinic.
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: Well, I remember asking once, I asked my pastor if there was an organization to give me a little money, like to buy some shoes, to buy some of those simple things. And he gave me a check. I cashed it and I put the money in a shoebox. And locked the shoebox up in the drug cupboard, and when someone came in with a simple need, we went to the shoebox.
And it wasn't until later that I could reflect back on the fact that no matter what was spent out of that box, there was always money left for whatever the next person needed.
LAUREN GILGER: That's amazing, yeah.
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: So, as the money accumulated in the box, so did the energy in the community to help us. It was common knowledge when I went there in 1996 that the biggest need in this community was a place for the sickest to go, that the people that were getting out of the hospital, people that had fresh surgical wounds, folks that were not weight-bearing after accidents, people that needed more care after they no longer met the criteria for remaining in the hospital. We needed a place other than the streets or shelters for those people to go.
LAUREN GILGER: So, you just did it.
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: So, I went to my community and I said, we need a medical respite center in Phoenix. Could we do that under the corporate umbrella of the Sisters of St. Joseph? And they said yes.
LAUREN GILGER: And so, there it is, yeah. So, I mean, talk a little bit about the work you do today. Circle the City is one of the few organizations that, as you said, is treating kind of the sickest of the sick and those who cannot pay, those who are often on the streets. How do you find them? What kind of issues do they encounter?
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: We opened in 2012. It worked. People got well, they had a chance to recover. However, when it came time to discharge them from the respite center, the outpatient system that would be user-friendly for them was not adequate to serve the Valley.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: So, in 2015, Circle the City opened our first outpatient clinic, fixed-site clinic, and we put our first mobile clinic on the road because it's very important for us that we go to the people, to create relationship, to establish trust and to provide care for the people who couldn't get to us.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: We also have five additional street teams that go out on foot to the places where the mobiles can't go.
LAUREN GILGER: Right. So, it's these mobiles, it's the street teams that I want to talk about next because I'm guessing they are the ones who will be most impacted by this new parks ordinance from the city of Phoenix, which is restricting the work that they can do in the parks. No more medical treatment of any kind in city parks.
First of all, before we talk about the reasons why they wanted to pass that, just tell us how it will impact your organization's work.
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: Well, we do have mobile clinics, but there are people that can't come to us. We have to go to them. And even to take our mobile clinics into parks under the ordinance that was recently passed, there is a permitting process. And the permitting process only allows two permits per month, per park.
We can't tell you ahead of time which park on which day the person is going to be there that really needs our services.
LAUREN GILGER: Right.
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: So, the permitting process that's in this ordinance is not practical or workable for us. So, I think, as we look ahead, it essentially prohibits medical care that we would provide in parks.
LAUREN GILGER: What will the impact of that be for, not for your organization, but for the people who you treat?
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: Well, we're worried about that, and we said that at the meetings that our worry is that more people will die in parks, especially during the heat. This ordinance is going to go into effect just as the worst of our heat is coming on for the summer.
You know, our outreach teams do intravenous hydration in the field because there are some people that will not go leave their belongings and their animals and leave the safety of a place where they stay, even when they're seriously ill. So, we go to them.
What we hear from our people is that sometimes a mental health condition is actually paralyzing. And those decisions to try to pick up and leave what they know as safety to go to an emergency room is a decision that they are unable to make.
LAUREN GILGER: So, you think people will die?
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: We do.
LAUREN GILGER: I wonder this because you founded this organization for, I'm sure, moral and religious reasons, this kind of imperative that you feel as a sister to to treat the poor.
I mean, is there a moment you can imagine there being a situation where someone is in danger and you're going to break this ordinance and go in and treat them anyway?
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: You know, it's hard for us to say right now what's going to happen in the future and what situations. Of course, we will obey the law and not go into parks to provide medical care when the law forbids that.
We have to find other ways. We have to find that's what we've done since Circle the City was founded and it's what our sisters have done since the beginning, is find innovative ways to meet the needs of the people.
LAUREN GILGER: How do you do that? What might that look like?
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: In the parks?
LAUREN GILGER: Sure, or outside of them, I guess.
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: Well, outside of them, we're finding all kinds of innovative ways, using electronic devices, using non-clinical teams. So, putting non-clinical teams out in the field that have ways of alerting medical personnel. Now, again, that will be a challenge.
LAUREN GILGER: They are going to have to move them out of the park to treat them.
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: Well, or call 911. And I think another thing our community is likely to face when this ordinance goes into effect is that 911's going to get hit over and over and over again for people that we would have treated in the field.
LAUREN GILGER: So, I mean, obviously, like, I think there are real concerns about, you know, finding needles in the parks. Like, people don't want their kids to find needles in the parks, which, you know, happens and we heard about it at those City Council meetings, too. Like, people don't want, you know, lots of medical debris left in parks because they're supposed to be these welcoming community spaces, and I can understand those arguments, as I'm sure you can, too.
Do you feel like there is a better way to to do both of these things, I guess?
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: I think the gap here is that where is the logic that forbidding us from going into the parks is going to do anything to affect dirty needles and litter in the parks? We are not leaving dirty needles or litter. And we don't want dirty needles or litter in the parks, either.
LAUREN GILGER: I want to ask you about something you testified when you were at the City Council meeting when they took this vote. You said, "I'm asking you please to remember that persons experiencing homelessness are your constituents as well."
I wonder if you can elaborate on that a little bit for us because I think it hits at the the central premise here that maybe is the premise that you hold, which is the humanity of the people who are in these very difficult and and ugly situations, like they're hard to love.
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: Well, we, you know, we don't find them hard to love. They're they're the reason that we get up in the morning.
And what I meant by that comment, I know that our our council people are trying to listen to the feedback from their constituents and to respond, right. But the feedback from our population that we serve and those who serve them was also very strong at those meetings. And if I were on that council, how do you weigh that? You have to find a solution that that takes care of the problem without harming your constituents.
And that's what we're worried about, that some of those constituents are really going to be harmed by this ordinance. The dollars that the city has allocated to serve them, I appreciate that. I really do. I think the city has has done a great job of finding dollars to open the SOS and to try to do what they can through the Office of Homeless Solutions. They they really have.
But the problem is we, we can't stop there. We can't stop there. We have to serve the folks that have such dire need that they're out there looking for a safe place to go. And this might be the only one they can find, and then they're sick.
LAUREN GILGER: Let me ask you lastly about sort of the I guess the overwhelming contrast that I keep thinking about throughout this conversation talking to you. A sister, right, about being a physician in these kind of situations, because I think a lot of people would have a lot of trouble with that.
Like, it is, and I've done a lot of reporting with the homeless population, like it can get very ugly, like there's drug use involved, you know, there's lots of violence involved. Like, it's not pretty. It's hard. I wonder how you approach that as a religious sister.
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: Well, you know, human weakness takes a lot of forms. We all struggle with something. And I think you'll find it in the value statements of Circle the City. We meet people where they are.
And that's what our first sisters did. Our first sisters went out and took care of street women, prostitutes, in the streets of this little town in France, you know. It's we're meeting people, both literally and figuratively, where they are. And if we don't meet them where they are, how's life ever going to get better?
These are good people who have been struggling with powers in their lives that they desperately wish they didn't have to struggle with. And, you know, and homelessness is one of those things. We all wish homelessness didn't exist in our city, and we don't want anybody to be afraid to go into the parks or afraid to use them for spaces of recreation for their children.
But what we want is that problem of homelessness in our city and our parks to be solved by a compassionate approach that meets people where they are and then moves them out of homelessness and into treatment and into shelter, and eventually into housing. That's the way we want the problem to be solved, not by watching people get sicker or by criminalizing them for their poverty.
LAUREN GILGER: OK, we'll leave it there. Sister Adele O'Sullivan, the founder of Circle the City, joining us. Sister O'Sullivan, thank you very much, I appreciate it.
SISTER ADELE O'SULLIVAN: Thank you for having me, Lauren.
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