Jacobs was troubled by the number of critically ill people with tuberculosis she saw on the streets and who lived like refugees in tents and shacks. As a member and early president of the Hebrew Ladies' Benevolent Society, Jacobs cared for critically ill Jewish people living in squalor along the Platte River banks and West Colfax by bringing soup, coal, clothing, soap and physicians. She also aided those who, due to hemorrhaging, fell ill on the street. West Colfax, comparable to New York City's Lower East Side, was a community primarily of Eastern European Jews.