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North Mpls health center celebrates expansion
Located in the heart of north Minneapolis, a longstanding health clinic is celebrating a historic campus expansion just as the facility’s CEO calls it a career.
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Located in the heart of north Minneapolis, a longstanding health clinic is celebrating a historic campus expansion just as the facility’s CEO calls it a career.
NorthPoint Health and Wellness is a north Minneapolis landmark. Located at the intersection of Plymouth and Penn avenues, its presence in the community spans decades.
"We’ve been here over 55 years, so we have generations of families that are getting their health services here," NorthPoint CEO Stella Whitney-West told FOX 9's Bisi Onile-Ere. "We knew that we had to produce a state-of-the-art facility because our mission is to create a healthier community and so we had to make sure we had the tools to do that."
Over the course of seven years, the health clinic has undergone a more than $90 million redevelopment that includes a new child wellness center and new dental clinic.
Through its partnership with Hennepin County, the clinic serves more than 30,000 people each year.
Located in the heart of north Minneapolis, a longstanding health clinic is celebrating a historic campus expansion just as the facility’s CEO calls it a career. (FOX 9)
She says that more than 90% of its guests are people of color, and more than 40% receive services in a language other than English.
"This model works – when you partner with a community, when you partner with the patients with the folks that are using the services, you do get a better product," said Whitney-West. "The statistics for north Minneapolis and the communities that we serve have some of the worst health outcomes and a lot of that is traced to racism as well. This is a community that has a low income as well so that does impact health outcomes."
The new facility also marks an ending and new beginning for Whitney-West.
After more than 20 years, many of them spent as CEO, she’s retiring.
"The message to the community is this is your community health clinic, this is your community health organization," said Whitney-West.