Alexa N. D'Angelo

The Republic | azcentral.com

At a new Phoenix healthcare clinic, a person who goes in for a check up could walk away with much more — access to a new job, housing and healthy food for his or her family.

The myCommunity Connect Center, located in Maryvale near 67th Avenue and Indian School Road, formed through a partnership between UnitedHealthcare and Chicanos Por La Causa. Leaders say it is the first-of-its-kind nationally and community leaders hope it will serve as a model for similar programs throughout the country.

"Our people are our greatest strength," Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton said at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Feb. 18. "This center will lift our people in tough times. The greatest investment we can make is directly in our community. This is an awesome center."

The myCommunity Connect Center is part of UnitedHealthcare's new myConnections pilot program to create social service and community programs that help families to improve their well-being. UnitedHealthcare provided a loan of $20 million for myConnections programs in the area and those housed in the myCommunity Connect Center. The center plans to sustain itself with the revenue from an apartment complex Chicanos Por La Causa purchased, along with other investors in the community.

The building houses patient services such as a food pantry for people with diabetes filled by local growers and St. Mary's Food Bank, housing services, medical and behavioral care and financial services, said Austin Pittman, CEO of UnitedHealthcare Community & State.

For this community the biggest barrier to better health care are social and financial issues, Pittman said. This center looks to create a place where people can better their overall well-being, Pittman said.

"We want everyone to feel like a person," said Pittman. "Where someone would've gone to multiple places for care and services before, we want them to come here to one place where they can get it all and be treated like a person, no matter their economic level."

The program offers support services for consumers for things like access to safe housing, transportation, education and job-training. Also offered are mobile food markets, services for women, infants and children, as well as medical, behavioral and dental services.

"The point is that a mom might come in to get health services and walk out with a job, or a meal for her kids," Pittman said.

Though the ribbon-cutting ceremony signified the beginning of a full launch, the center opened in September and already has made an impact in the community, Pittman said.

More than 400 people have received referral services and 700 received social services. Since opening, 2,800 meals have been provided with 700 diabetic food pantry pickups and around 200 people have received housing services help, Pittman said.

"In the next year we expect to have more than 44,000 visits," said David Adame, CEO of Chicanos Por La Causa. "Two years ago we had a dream and today it became a reality. We are going to make a difference in the Maryvale community."

Gina Ore, a volunteer with myCommunity Connect Center said in the few months she has worked there she has seen dozens of people helped by the services offered. Ore noted one young man who is a junior in high school and caring for his sick father.

"He comes to the center and brings his dad when he can and gets diabetic food bags delivered," Ore said. "He is so kind, caring and respectful. He's small in stature but big in heart and always so gracious when we see him."

Leaders want the pilot program and the center concept to expand to other states.

"We hope to take this model and learn from it and grow it in other places like Detroit and North Carolina. Our effort to change healthcare in American starts right here," Pittman said.