Almost Home has launched a new family health clinic to provide health and social services to program members in need. Read more about it here.

St. Louis, MO – Almost Home announces Family Health Clinic opening that increases health, wellbeing, and wraparound services for program members. Monday, March 4, 2024, at 10:00 a.m. Almost Home will welcome local dignitaries and community supporters for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to officially open the clinic.
Almost Home exists to provide members resources for economic mobility, access to housing, education, mental health, and lifelong economic opportunities. For over 30 years, Almost Home has provided a refuge for St. Louis area unhoused young mothers and their children, while helping moms achieve self-sufficiency. The organization stabilizes and empowers teens and young families struggling with complex trauma by providing them with critical, vital resources including food, shelter, and utilities. Additionally, Almost Home provides individual and group mental health services, parenting education, HiSet preparation and tutoring, financial education, job readiness support, guidance & training to help lift families out of poverty two generations at a time.
The facilities at Almost Home include living space for 15 young families including up to 25 children, classrooms, an indoor playroom, mindfulness, living, and dining room, kitchen, offices, and NOW a Family Health Clinic! Twelve supervised apartments for the independent living program are across the street from the main building.
The opening of Almost Home’s Family Health Clinic accomplishes stabilizing and reaching goals of improving social determinants of health and justice for members and their families. Almost Home removes barriers to healthcare such as transportation and care coordination. There are additional needs for these services, but this is a great start. Almost Home would like to offer this service to those who have graduated from the program and reside in the community.
The Almost Home Family Health Clinic is accessible and convenient. Many of our young moms struggle to feel safe. They have experienced multiple traumas and discrimination, making it difficult for them to entrust their bodies or their children’s bodies to a stranger. By establishing a long-term relationship with the nurse practitioner, members can build trust and a sense of safety. If necessary, Almost Home staff may remain in the room during examinations to increase comfortability. The current political climate around women’s health care makes this a priority issue, especially for those traditionally underserved. Without the barriers of cost, transportation, and mistrust, the young families we serve will increase their access to healthcare and achieve more positive health results. – Huvona Watkins, Executive Director of Almost Home
Listening to The Community
Young mothers at Almost Home long to have stable careers and keep their children in school, but getting and keeping a job seems out of reach without steady access to affordable healthcare. The community called upon Almost Home to mitigate these health insecurities in pursuit of the greater mission. Almost Home is grateful for the generosity of those who believed in the Almost Home vision: St. Louis City Department of Health provided funding for a doula who provides prenatal care, postpartum support, nutrition, and breastfeeding support. Blues for Kids provided funding for the equipment, volunteers from the Dream Center and NorthPoint helped prepare the space, and a grant from Episcopal Health Trust provided start-up funding.
Through a partnership with another nonprofit, iFM, the clinic is staffed with a nurse practitioner who provides immunizations, acute care, physicals, wellness visits, and even health education for members and their children!
About Almost Home
Almost Home empowers young moms to become self-sufficient and create a better future for themselves and their children. Since 1993, Almost Home has provided stable housing and support services to young moms in the St. Louis community. Almost Home has helped nearly 2,000 families take the first steps on the path toward a brighter future. Almost Home is a United Way of Greater St. Louis member agency.
Invest in St. Louis Area Families, Donate today:
Almost Home Program Description and Target Population
Almost Home provides a wide array of support services, including mental health services, parenting education, life skills training, education support, and career services to St. Louis area moms ages 16-21 and their children ages 0-5. Our flagship program is called Foundations to Success. Almost Home provides a safe, stable home where teen moms can participate with their children for up to two years. Approximately 95% of clients served are African American. All clients are under the federal poverty line, have experienced long-term housing instability, and report experiencing physical, mental, or sexual trauma prior to arriving at Almost Home. Almost Home also serves young women ages of 16-28 through our Community Living model. This allows Almost Home to engage young moms who are motivated to work toward a better future for their children, even if the housing aspect of the program is not a good fit for them. Upon successful transition to the community, Almost Home offers ongoing home visits, mental health therapy, life skills classes, and case management to ensure the family’s long-term success. Almost Home served approximately 689 individuals in 2023.
Contact: Satonya Booker, Director of Development, 314-771-4663 x 415 or sbooker@almosthomestl.org
#healthcare #communitysupport #nonprofitorganization