Urban League of Greater Philadelphia is opening a free clinic in West Philadelphia

The Urban League of Greater Philadelphia is opening a free clinic in West Philadelphia for people without health insurance. The $8 million Center for Well-Being will also offer workforce development, housing, and other services, Urban League officials announced Friday.

The project at 5616 Chestnut St. sits in a neighborhood where three-quarters of the residents have low- or moderate-incomes and chronic conditions like diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure are widespread.

The clinic will be open to all Philadelphia residents and expects to serve residents of eastern Delaware County as well, Urban League president Darrin W. Anderson Sr. said at Friday’s kickoff event.

“Across Philadelphia, too many residents continue to face barriers to good health, economic mobility, stable housing, quality jobs, and the resources needed to thrive. These challenges are deeply interconnected and require more than isolated solutions. They require a comprehensive community center approach,” Anderson said.

The Urban League acquired the building in March for $1.6 million — attracted by the proximity to the Market-Frankford El and its parking lot, both of which make the building accessible to people outside the immediate neighborhood. With internal demolition about half finished, the center is expected to open in the first quarter of next year.

The center — in a former Mercy Hospital of Philadelphia building — will employ around 30 people when it is fully operational, said Chetan Panda, executive director of community and economic impact for the Urban League.

The hires for the 4,500-square-foot clinic with eight exam rooms will include a medical director this fall, he said.

The project’s funding comes from a federal tax credit program designed to encourage private investment in economically distressed neighborhoods.

Finanta, a nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution and credit union in Philadelphia, arranged the financing.

Three years ago, U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans, a Philadelphia Democrat retiring at the end of his current term, secured $1.2 million in seed money for the project.

The Urban League modeled its free clinic on those in Cherry Hill, Phoenixville, and West Chester. The city’s numerous free primary care clinics are only open periodically, as opposed to being open daily.

Philadelphia has 110,000 people without insurance, according to Panda. Many of them earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, yet don’t have access to insurance through their jobs. Their jobs pay too poorly for them to afford insurance on the state’s Affordable Care Act exchange, Panda said in an interview Thursday.

The number of uninsured people is expected to grow next year when new requirements for federal insurance program take effect.

The clinic will refer people who have Medicaid, Medicare, or private insurance to the federal health clinic closest to them. In West Philadelphia, that could be Spectrum or PHMC at the former Mercy Hospital of Philadelphia.

Federal clinics, known as federally qualified heath centers, have a sliding payment scale for people who don’t have insurance. “We see that a lot of uninsured people forgo care at the FQHCs because they don’t want to pay the sliding scale. That’s a cost burden,” Panda said

When they need care, they often seek it in high-cost emergency departments, he said.

Free clinics rely on nearby hospitals for some of their staff and for donated services, such as X-rays and other diagnostic tests. Penn Medicine will support the new clinic in West Philadelphia, just as it does existing federal health centers, said Richard Wender, Penn’s chair of family medicine, who was at Friday’s event.

Penn also supports Chester Volunteers in Medicine in Chester County through its Chester County Hospital.