UF Medical Guild provides grant to AAMRC Women’s Clinic at GRACE
Press release from Grace Healthcare Services Corp
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The UF Medical Guild (UFMG) granted $5,494 to Grace Healthcare Services Corp (GHSC) in October 2022 for medications, prescriptions, and a sound-proof, private clinic space for patient intake. Previously, the UFMG had granted funding that provided for an updated Grace Clinic including two new private exam rooms. Grace Clinic is where the Women’s (Only) Clinic is held.
The Alachua Area Medical Reserve Corps (AAMRC) established the Women’s (Only) Clinic at GRACE Marketplace in September 2021. The clinic is held on the 2nd and 4th Mondays of each month, 9:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. Since opening, the clinic has served well over 200 homeless, medically indigent women, providing trauma-informed care and clinic services including general medical and gynecological care, STD testing/treatment, limited prenatal care/referral, and sexual assault evaluation with onsite counseling by Alachua County Victim Services/Rape Crisis Center staff.
Florida, the third-largest state, ranks third behind California and New York in homeless numbers. HUD’s 2021 National Point in Time homeless count found 41% or 5,562 of Florida’s sheltered homeless were women. Per the 2022 World Population Review, 28,328 Floridians are homeless, roughly half sheltered. About 1/3 of GRACE Marketplace’s 120 guests are female.
The Center on Violence Against Women, US Council of Mayors, Urban League, and National Coalition for the Homeless found homeless women particularly vulnerable to sexual violence at rates as high as 92%. At GRACE Marketplace, many women prefer to remain unsheltered and live outside in the woods for safety. 90% report having been victims of sexual assault, violence, exploitation, or trading sex for physical protection. These women often have multiple serious unreported gynecological conditions left untreated.
Grace Healthcare Services Corp thanks all organizations with whom it collaborates: UF Medical Guild, AAMRC/Florida Dept of Health, GRACE Marketplace, UF Mobile Outreach Clinic, Helping Hands, Equal Access Clinic, UF Psychiatry, City of Gainesville, and Alachua County.
Bravo. Very nice write up to help the public see what is happening in our community that really matters. Sounds like a wonderful mixture of hope.
The only problem is that this “news” is nine months old. This is merely a press release published on a slow news day (Sunday).
Thank you James Gardner.
Lorry Davis, Grace Healthcare Executive Director
I found it disturbing that it was stated that “At GRACE Marketplace
imany women prefer to remain unsheltered and live outside in the woods for safety.” I choose to believe from this statement, and from my own conversations with the Homeless on the streets of Gainesville, that GRACE is not being effective in its stated mission of drawing the homeless off the streets into shelter,safety and eventually housing. What is being done to correct this?
Peter, take a drive to the Walmart on NE Waldo road and look at the growing tent city that is forming there just behind the bus stop near the entrance.
Be sure to note the organized gangs of beggars that congregate at 39th and Waldo Rd, University and Waldo Rd., etc. during all commute times.
That’s your answer about the effectiveness of GRACE Marketplace, which has done nothing but attract the willful homeless to blight this once-great city.
Downtown Gainesville has a much smaller homeless population, centered on Main and S 4th Ave instead of the Bo Diddley Plaza since Grace opened. Given that most citizens don’t go to the intersection of 39th Ave and Waldo Road for dinner or weekend nights out, this is a very big improvement.
By the way, I go through the 39th Ave/Waldo Rd intersection close to daily and the average 2 beggars there is not noteworthy.
We are not GRACE Marketplace, we are Grace Healthcare
Services Corp.
Thank you.