Louisville invests $800K to expand health care clinic serving city’s vulnerable residents

LOUISVILLE, Ky (WDRB) -- After nearly two decades of operating out of temporary trailers, the Family Health Centers operating from the Americana World Community Center in Louisville’s south end is expanding its space — thanks to a boost from the city’s budget surplus.

The new project will transform part of a former Catholic school into a full-service clinic. The section being renovated once served as housing for nuns, but soon it will become a modern health center aimed at serving some of Louisville’s most vulnerable residents, including the city's immigrant population.

“We certainly are concerned with our patients who are immigrants and refugees,” said Bart Irwin, CEO of Family Health Centers.

The clinic’s mission is to provide care for those without access to traditional health care services, including many in the immigrant and refugee community — both documented and undocumented.

Currently, the south end site serves between 2,000 and 2,500 patients. With the expansion, Irwin said that number could double.

“The zip code that we’re standing in (has) more people, more patients come from this zip code than any other zip code in Jefferson County," he said.

Behind the main building sit several aging mobile trailers that were meant to be temporary when they were installed 17 years ago.

“It was a trailer that they thought had a two-year life to provide some temporary services that kept going and going and going,” said Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg.

The expansion comes at a time when immigration remains a major national and local talking point.

"We serve a fair amount of persons, who are documented, and come to Family Health Centers for care," said Irwin. "So yeah, we are concerned whether that makes us a target or not, remains to be seen."

Concern can be accompanied by anxiety and panic. Mental health care was once a taboo topic in public health centers, but it has become a growing part of the clinic's mission.

"I think probably what's caught our attention most is we've served several individuals that were involved in the plane crash, the UPS plane crash," Irwin said. "Just gut-wrenching circumstances."

The city is contributing $800,000 from its recent $17 million budget surplus toward the project — a one-time investment in the clinic’s $4 million renovation. Most of the remaining funding comes from federal Medicaid, community health center funding, and the clinic’s in-house pharmacy, which helps generate additional income.

“Those three things keep us floating,” Irwin said.

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