NEW YORK (AP) — Elisa Reyes has come to Plaza del Sol Family Health Center for doctor’s appointments for more than a decade. She moved away a while ago but keeps returning — even if it means a two-hour roundtrip bus ride.
That’s because her two children see the same doctor she does. Because when she’s sick, she can walk in without an appointment. Because the staff at the Queens clinic helped her apply for health insurance and food stamps.
“I feel at home. They also speak my language,” Reyes, 33, said in Spanish. “I feel comfortable.”
Plaza del Sol is one of two dozen sites run by Urban Health Plan Inc., which is one of nearly 1,400 federally designated community health centers. One in 11 Americans rely on these to get routine medical care, social services and, in some cases, fresh food.
The clinics serve as a critical safety net in every state and U.S. territory for low-income people of all ages. But it’s a safety net under stress.
Since 2012, community health centers have seen a 45% increase in the number of people seeking care — and they’ve opened more and more service sites to expand their footprint to more than 15,000 locations.
Many centers are short-staffed and struggling to compete for doctors, mental health professionals, nurses and dentists. Leaders also told The Associated Press that funding is an ever-present concern, with the months-long debate over the federal budget making it all but impossible for them to plan and hire for the long term.
Community health centers have been around in some form for decades, and are largely what remains when urban and rural hospitals close or cut back on services.
Dr. Matthew Kusher, Plaza del Sol’s clinical director, said there are things that prescriptions can’t change, like stopping the spread of flu and COVID-19 when people live in apartments with one family per room and it’s impossible to quarantine.
“What we provide here is only 20% of what goes toward somebody’s health,” Kusher said. “Their health is more driven by the other factors, more driven by the poverty, and the lack of access to food or clean water or healthy air.”
Nine in 10 health center patients live at or below 200% of the federal poverty line, according to the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration. Beyond that:
— In 2022, nearly 1.4 million health center patients were homeless.
— One in five was uninsured.
— Half were on Medicaid.
— One in four was best served in a language other than English; about 63% were racial or ethnic minorities.
