Project Details:

The project involved the rehabilitation and expansion of an existing 37,000 square foot, five story building whose primary tenant is a Federally Qualified Health Center focused on serving the indigent and underinsured with a full range of primary medical, dental, and mental health services. The rehabilitation of the Annex Building at North General Hospital houses the Family Health Center which occupied 28,000 square feet in the North General Hospital building located at a different location. This project allowed the Family Health Center to expand their clinical capacity with significant expansion in dental services and increasing their patient visits by more than 30,000 visits from what was provided at their previous facility.

The facility is located in a severely distressed census tract in East Harlem in New York, New York. The area is designated as medically underserved, meeting three of the primary stress characteristics with nearly half of the tract population in poverty, incomes at 32.7 percent of the area median, and unemployment exceeding 3.5 times the national average. This service area includes Central and East Harlem which, according to the US Census, are two of the poorest areas in New York.

This project allowed the Family Health Center to serve approximately 79,000 patient visits annually, or the equivalent of 26,000 individuals served. As an FQHC, Family Health Center provides services to all patients regardless of financial status and their predominant patient base is covered by either Medicaid or Medicare. Before this project, approximately 69 percent of the Family Health Center’s patients were covered by Medicaid and 20.5 percent were covered by State and other funds. Therefore, it is estimated that 89.5 percent, or 23,920 low income persons, are now served annually.