GARFIELD PARK — A new wellness center in Garfield Park will help West Siders with behavioral health needs, such as mental health care and substance abuse treatment, as they are discharged from local hospitals.
Collaborative Bridges Wellness Center opened Tuesday at 4223 W. Lake Street. The 17,000-square-foot facility includes 16 therapy rooms, four medical exam rooms and a pharmacy. The facility brings together eight West Side organizations, all offering behavioral health services.
Participating providers include Hartgrove and Loretto hospitals, Humboldt Park Health, Community Counseling Centers of Chicago, Bobby E. Wright Comprehensive Behavioral Health Center, Habilitative Systems Inc., Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities Inc. and PCC Community Wellness Center.
The wellness center’s model uses all eight organizations to create a network of care between social service providers and local safety net hospitals to address neighbors’ fundamental health needs, while avoiding unnecessary ER visits or hospitalizations. Patients who are discharged from a local hospital can continue long-term outpatient care at the center through either a referral or as a walk-in client.
Services offered include drop-in social recovery and stabilization to help people with mental health and addiction needs re-acclimate to society and crisis stabilization services that provide an alternative to emergency room care or psychiatric hospitalization. Primary care and lab services are also provided.
“Being able to have this collaborative that provides that service as soon as [patients] get out of the hospital has been very pivotal,” said RaeNette Young, the center’s clinical director.
A patient who would normally visit an emergency room for services such as a shower, food or warm shelter can now visit the wellness center to be connected to services through one of its agencies, Young said.
With the new center, Collaborative Bridges hopes to serve 3,500 patients in its first year. The center estimates that 60 percent of its patients are experiencing homelessness, based on data from the participating providers.
The facility was awarded a $13 million grant from the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services’ Healthcare Transformation Collaboratives program from 2021-2024, with an additional $5.9 million dollars provided for 2025-2026.
The center also received a 26-month grant of about $1 million from Cook County Health’s Stronger Together Initiative.
Six of the center’s participating organizations began collaborating in 2021, serving around 2,000 patients annually.
Healthcare Transformation Collaboratives began that same year, following the death of George Floyd in 2020. Launched by Illinois Legislative Black Caucus members, including state Sen. Mattie Hunter and Rep. Camille Lilly, the program aims to promote health equity in underserved communities across the state, including Chicago’s South and West sides, with a focus of four health equity goals. That includes addressing community needs, improving health and wellness, tailoring specialized approaches and creating sustainable investments.
“We collectively knew that all of these aid organizations were doing work, but they were not working together,” Lilly told dozens of attendees at the center’s ribbon cutting ceremony Tuesday. “The transformation was to make sure the most critical organizations — entities that are in our vulnerable communities — knew each other and were able to work together.”
To learn more about the Collaborative Bridges Wellness Center or schedule a visit, go to its website.
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