Community Care To Come With Clinic Expansion

A light-saturated waiting area. A lush outdoor patio. A rooftop terrace alive with plants and trees.

The images, exhibited on an easel at the Atwater Senior Center, were only representative of what the new Fair Haven Community Health Care clinic could be — but they took Denise Dean’s breath away. 

Dean, FHCHC’s person-centered care coordinator, has been at the clinic for over 20 years. To judge from the palpable sense of excitement among the dozen or so residents at a recent community gathering, she wasn’t alone in her feeling of welcome anticipation.

Once the meeting got started last Tuesday night, the talk shifted to job opportunities, access to space for nonprofits, and the scope of clinical services. 

Hosted by FHCHC, the occasion marked another step in the long-planned, multi-component overhaul of the neighborhood-based healthcare organization’s bid to construct a new three-story clinic building on 382 – 394 Grand Ave next to its current headquarters.

FHCHC president Suzanne Lagarde and clinic representatives summed up the reason for expansion.

The 19^th century Victorian houses occupied by FHCHC ​“are just not set up for 21^st century health care,” Lagarde said.

The clinic, she said, ​“is less about bricks and mortar than our programs and what we can deliver to the residents of our community, but a building does play somewhat of a role, and this is no longer a facility that we want to deliver care to our patients.”

She noted that since 2013, when she arrived at FHCHC, the clinic has increased the type of services provided.

“We’re doing much more these days in the areas of educational health, substance use disorders, and gender affirming care,” she said. ​“We want to provide quality care for the full spectrum of patients and the truth is that we have run out of room to grow.” 

“We want something that sends the message that we value you and that we’re giving you care in an environment that is welcome, that is beautiful, and that resonates with you.” 

“The Fair Haven community is growing rapidly,” said Marta Moret, co-chair of the clinic’s capital campaign. ​“We have more refugees and immigrants from Latin America, from the Caribbean. We have more African Americans.” 

“This is a clinic that meets all those diverse needs, and that’s what sets it apart,” she said, of the clinic, which the Health Resources and Services Administration has recognized with a National Quality Leadership award and a High Value Health Center award, two of the most critical measures of community health success each year since 2017.

“It is culturally sensitive to the people who come in the door. If we don’t speak the language, we have ways that we can get the language translated for them.” 

“What we find is that we don’t have enough space right now for clinicians to work in, so the wait time to get a new patient appointment is sadly, and especially for mental health services, well out there,” said Dominic Seraphin, the clinic’s vice president of business development.

Regarding construction — the plan is for completion in February 2025, according to Lagarde — co-chair of the building committee Bill Morico told the group that federal and state funding requires affirmative action hiring. 

“The board has insisted on writing into the contracts that we are going to exceed those federal and state requirements,” he said. ​“We’re working with the subcontractors to hire as many workers as possible from the community.”

Fair Haven resident and neighborhood activist Lee Cruz shared his ideas about how to ensure that happens.

“You need to encourage New Haven Works, which has the mechanism to match people, to come out to Fair Haven because we’re not seeing them here,” he said, referring to the organization that ​“provides job training and career coaching to help residents land job in sectors like construction.”

“They could work with [the Latina-led nonprofit] Junta to match prospective employees.”

He suggested that they reach out to St. Francis Church on Ferry Street. ​“They’re seeing people coming in, they know of parishioners who are not finding jobs, or just moved to the area,” he said.

Likewise, Emerge, which helps formerly incarcerated people in their integration into their communities. ​“They can tell you ​‘look, this guy, he’s ready, you have a job for him, he’s ready to leave our program and go into a legitimate job.’”

Fellow Fair Havener Dave Weinreb asked if the clinic plans to leverage space for community use. 

“Would you want an organization like Gather New Haven to have their headquarters in the building, or is it to be used solely for the clinic itself?” he asked, adding that the mission of the new clinic, which is slated to include a food pharmacy and community garden, aligns with Gather New Haven, with its five farms and more than 45 community gardens. 

Lagarde said there are no plans for dedicated space for nonprofits. ​“Our vision is that if you have a group and you want to meet there, you can utilize the facilities,” she said, whether it’s job training sessions, English as a second language courses, or after-school programs. 

Chela Serrano, director of social services at Junta, suggested that her organization, as well as other agencies, could use the space for intake applications, and help with rent or energy assistance, or with paying the bills.

Lagarde agreed. ​“We want this to be a community facility,” she said. ​“We designed the third floor with entirely that in mind, the whole clinic in fact, with the idea of addressing what we call the social determinants of health like access to food and economic security.” 

“That’s all part of our mission,” she went on. ​“You can’t be healthy if you don’t have a good job.”

“And vice versa,” Cruz rejoined.

To Fair Haven resident Marlene Edelstein’s question about plans to expand clinical services, Lagarde discussed the challenges of hiring in that area. 

“For this community, our priority is to hire bilingual people who deliver medical care,” she said. ​“We can hire someone who delivers medical care who may not speak Spanish and use a translator, but it’s really not ideal, and you really can’t do that with behavioral health.” 

She also talked about a new emphasis on internal training. ​“I think that makes us a better employer, and we want to become an employer of choice,” she said.

Moret ended the meeting with an invitation to partake in the generous spread and to join a community advisory group that would meet quarterly to get updates and provide input on the facility.

While there were no takers for the group — there will be similar quarterly community meetings instead — Dean, the person-centered care coordinator, shared another means to get feedback: a patients’ voice group that will meet monthly that also, it seemed, captured FHCHC’s mission of involving the community in the shaping of the new clinic. 

“We’re going to use these groups to build a partnership with our patients,” she said. ​“We want to know if we’re on the right track, what is it that we’re missing completely, and also this project that we’re discussing tonight. So we really build a bridge, not just an occasional survey, or a ​‘hey, how did it go today?’ I want to build a partnership.”

Amid the lively chatter of attendees sampling tacos and chicken flautas, Dean again regarded the photos with enthusiasm.

“It’s something that looks like it belongs on Malibu Beach, and yet somehow will fit in the corner of Fair Haven,” she said. ​“It’s just this beautiful, bright, cutting-edge and not pretentious place but a welcoming one that will make people feel good about getting care and taking care of themselves.”