They Came In for Their Pets. They Left With a Doctor.
The cat's name is Melody, and the last time she came to the clinic, nobody could get her out of her carrier. This visit, she stood calmly on the exam table, working her way through a tube of meat paste like she owned the place. Gabapentin helped. So did the fact that the people around her were sitting on the floor, talking in soft voices, trying their hardest to make her feel safe.
Melody's owner, a young woman navigating homelessness, was watching. And once Melody was settled and vaccinated and clearly fine, something shifted. The human side of the visit could begin.
This is the entire theory behind the One Health Clinic at New Horizons Youth Shelter in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood. The University of Washington and Washington State University co-run the clinic, which visits the shelter every two weeks to provide veterinary care to pets belonging to young people who are homeless or housing-unstable. And then, once the vet visit is over, they walk those same young people about three feet down the hall to a human health clinic staffed by Neighborcare Health.
It sounds simple. It works remarkably well.
The Numbers That Made Everyone Pay Attention
A study from UW and WSU tracking the clinic over three years found that 80% of the young clients who came in received medical care. That alone is notable. What makes it remarkable is this: about 70% of them showed up only intending to get help for their pet. They did not walk in thinking they needed a doctor. They walked in thinking their dog needed a vaccine. And then, through the process of watching their animal receive care in an environment that felt safe and nonjudgmental, they became open to receiving some themselves.
The follow-through held too. Eighty-five percent of clients attended at least one follow-up visit within two years of their first appointment. For a population that research consistently shows experiences higher rates of chronic illness, mental health disorders, and substance use disorders while simultaneously facing greater barriers to care, that retention number is extraordinary.
Dr. Peter Rabinowitz, a family medicine physician who co-founded the clinic and leads the Center for One Health Research at UW, is clear about what this means. Treating pets is not just a compassionate add-on for people experiencing homelessness. It is a mechanism for building the kind of trust that gets people into care who would not otherwise go.
What Vets Actually Do Here
The veterinary team, led by WSU faculty member Dr. Katie Kuehl, sets up exam tables in the hallway of the shelter's living pod area. They stock boxes of cat litter, dog food, and supplies for vaccines, deworming, spays, neuters, and general wellness. The pets skew young because the owners are young. And the approach is anything but clinical.
They get on the floor. They bring squeeze cheese. They use baby voices. All of it intentional. An anxious dog or cat is an anxious owner, and the entire goal of the vet visit is to demonstrate to the young person in front of them that this is a space where they will be treated with care, not judgment.
The clinical observations also feed directly into understanding the owner's situation. A pet with a parasite load opens a conversation about living conditions. Behavioral changes in an animal can signal that both the pet and the person have been through something hard. The vet visit is not just medicine. It is intake.
Nurse practitioner Anina Terry handles the human side of the clinic. She hears a version of the same thing often: the young person says they do not really need anything, and then, almost immediately, mentions a question they have been sitting on for months. About an STI. About their mental health. About something that was not pressing enough to justify the discomfort and distrust that comes with navigating a formal healthcare system. But now they are already here. The barrier has already been cleared.
Trust Is the Treatment
Destiny Clough is 25 years old. His dog, Mei, is a seven-pound Chihuahua who attends clinic visits wearing a pink sweatshirt that says "security." Clough heard about the One Health Clinic two years ago through friends while he was staying at a YMCA shelter, and he came in initially for Mei. During a period of homelessness, she was the reason he kept going.
What he did not expect was to start taking care of himself too. Clough had experienced healthcare that made him feel like assumptions were being made about him before he could say a word. The clinic felt different. Over time, it helped him recognize that his mental health needed attention. It connected him to other young people in similar situations. And it gave him something that is not easy to manufacture: a reason to keep showing up.
Now Clough and Mei are in housing, and he still comes to clinic every other week. Not because he has to. Because the relationship is real.
Tiffany Washington, executive director at New Horizons, has watched the change in the young people who come on clinic days. These are individuals who typically brace themselves for stigma when they access medical care. On clinic days, she said, they are excited.
What This Means for the Profession
For veterinarians, the One Health Clinic is proof of something the profession has been arguing for years: the care we provide extends beyond the animal on the table. The human-animal bond is not a marketing concept. It is a clinical lever, and when leveraged thoughtfully, it can reach people that conventional medicine cannot.
There were skeptics early on. Concerns about having animals and people receiving care in the same space, about contamination, about logistics. The New Horizons clinic has run for years without those fears materializing. What materialized instead was a model good enough to replicate. The One Health team has now helped launch similar clinics in New York City and Tucson. In 2025, they launched a monthly clinic in Seattle serving older adults, many with long histories of homelessness and deeper-rooted health challenges and medical distrust.
Each population brings different needs. Older patients are navigating heart disease and hypertension rather than family planning, in themselves and increasingly in their pets. The trust-building takes longer. But the structure of the model holds: meet people where they are, care for what they love, and let that open the door.
The goal of the clinic was never to maximize the number of pets seen in a three-hour window. It was to build relationships. As Rabinowitz puts it, the clinic proves that treating pets has a direct human health value. For a profession that has sometimes had to make that case, the data from Seattle is a pretty good argument.
Source: "Seattle clinic gets homeless youth engaged in care by treating their pets" by Stephannie Stokes, The Seattle Times, March 7, 2026. The One Health Clinic is a collaboration between the University of Washington and Washington State University.
