CCALAC President & CEO Louise McCarthy reflects on the community health center movement this National Health Center Week.
National Health Center Week is underway, and while community health centers celebrate their patients, staff and partners, this year’s celebrations feel more subdued in the face of multiple challenges to the health center movement. In this moment, however, it’s important to reflect on how far the movement has come since its beginning in the Civil Rights Era.
While some health centers in Los Angeles trace their roots back to the early 1900s, it was in the 1960s that the health center movement began in earnest nationwide, and in the 1990s that Los Angeles’ health centers galvanized to work together toward their common mission.
Thirty years ago, LA’s health system was on the edge of collapse and the county was on the brink of bankruptcy. In ...