HISTORY of THE HEALTH CENTER

Brockton Neighborhood Health Center was chartered and incorporated in 1992 by a core group of concerned residents in the greater Brockton area who saw a definite and desperate need for services. At that time, Brockton was the only city of its size in Massachusetts that had not yet opened a health center. It had only three full-time physicians providing primary and preventive health care to the 26,551 residents residing in the federally designated Medically Underserved Area (MUA) of downtown Brockton. The population of the MUA was extremely diverse and up to 35% of families lived in poverty.

Brockton Neighborhood Health Center (BNHC) is a non-profit, multicultural, community health center. Incorporated in 1992, BNHC began providing services in 1994 in a mobile medical van operating out of a church parking lot. In its efforts to meet the health care needs of the community, Brockton Neighborhood Health Center constructed a new $17 million community health center, and began seeing patients in this new facility in November 2007. The new facility doubled the health center’s capacity to serve low-income, diverse, medically underserved patients in Brockton and surrounding communities.

The new health center building is five stories high, encompassing 58,000 square feet, and is located in the center of downtown Brockton on a once blighted lot in the heart of Brockton’s federally designated Medically Underserved Area. The new building enabled BNHC to consolidate three of its four sites, and increased operating space from 21,000 to 57,000 sq. ft. In addition, a portion of the building’s ground floor has been leased to an independent retail pharmacy to ensure BNHC patients have convenient access to needed discounted medications.