Local
Mesa's new 81-bed medical respite center offers homeless patients a place to heal
Circle the City is opening a 33,000-square-foot facility near Main Street and Higley Road where homeless patients can recover from surgery, trauma and serious illness instead of returning to the streets. The nonprofit says 77% of patients who complete care leave with a housing plan.
MESA, Ariz. â A Phoenix-based nonprofit is expanding its medical respite program into Mesa, opening an 81-bed center designed to give homeless patients a safe place to recover from surgery, trauma and other serious medical conditions rather than returning to the streets.
Circle the City's new facility, located near Main Street and Higley Road, spans 33,000 square feet and can house 64 men and 17 women while they heal. The organization will hold a grand opening Friday.
The center addresses a gap that advocates say can be life-threatening: when unhoused people are discharged from hospitals, they often have nowhere to go and no way to follow post-treatment care instructions.
"People who are unhoused, when they're discharged from the hospital, they have nowhere to go," said Kim Despres, CEO of Circle the City. "This provides them that place to go."
Despres said the Mesa facility should help keep patients out of hospital emergency rooms and that 77% of patients who complete their care at Circle the City leave with a housing plan rather than returning to homelessness.
Circle the City began 12 years ago with a respite center in midtown Phoenix. Patients there described the care as transformative.
"The outside world is rough," said Yankton Procla, a patient at the Phoenix center. "I owe this place more than they think I do. I have a chance at living life again, and that's what's important."
Procla and fellow patient Derrick Moten both said they are homeless and in recovery from addiction, and both came to the center for medical care they could not otherwise afford. Moten said he feels safe at the facility and sees promise in the Mesa expansion.
"They've got huge benefits and resources coming to them," Moten said. "This foundation is built on solid ground."
Despres noted that many homeless patients need several days before they trust staff members at respite centers, but once they do, they begin to make progress.
The Mesa center is not the only recent expansion of health care for homeless residents in the city. In October, St. Vincent de Paul opened a free medical clinic for homeless people in Mesa.
The new facility is expected to serve as a regional resource for the East Valley, where access to recuperative care for unhoused patients has been limited. Circle the City leaders say the center will help reduce strain on local emergency departments while giving patients a stable environment to recover and connect with housing services.