by Debbie Gilbert
A decade ago, physician and minister Dr. Scott Morris saw a need to serve the working poor -- those who don't qualify for government assistance but can't afford private medical insurance. In September 1987, the Church Health Center opened at the corner of Peabody and Bellevue with an almost radical concept: reasonably priced health care provided mostly by volunteers, with funding from churches, individuals, businesses, and foundations (but not from any government source).
It was
more successful than anyone dreamed possible. Today, the Church Health Center
has 20,000 patients receiving medical, dental, and optometric care as well
as counseling and health-education classes. The paid staff includes four
full-time physicians, and the clinic has expanded to five buildings -- yet
it's still bursting at the seams. Next year, the CHC will acquire and renovate
Baptist Hospital's Healthplex (which is moving elsewhere). The new facility
will offer not only medical care but fitness, wellness, and prevention services.
And just about every other city in the country wants to know how Memphis did it.
"We get calls on a weekly basis from people in other cities who have heard of us and are interested," says Morris, the CHC's executive director. "It's very time-consuming for us to answer their questions."
Thus, Morris and his colleagues hit upon the idea of hosting a conference to explain how it's done. "Starting a Faith-Based Health Center" will be held this Friday and Saturday, November 7th and 8th, at the University of Memphis' Fogelman Executive Center. Health-care professionals, clergy, and laypersons from about 30 cities are expected to attend.
Co-chairing the conference with Morris is Dr. David Ciscel, a U of M economics professor who's written a manual on which the conference agenda is based.
The emphasis is on practical advice, not theory or philosophy. "We don't question whether churches should be involved with health care -- that's assumed," says Morris. "We focus on implementation, on the nuts-and-bolts of it. What do you need on the very first day you open, to get started? How do you go about getting community support?"
When the CHC opened in 1987, there were no comparable clinics in the U.S., and it's still considered the model for others to emulate. "Our first `clone' opened in Knoxville about seven years ago, and it's doing well," says Morris. "There are several others around the country that have taken bits and pieces of what we do."
But he's concerned about quality control. "We don't want [conference participants] to go back and open a clinic that's only open one day a week -- say, an orthopedic surgeon who treats children on Tuesday nights. We don't think that's right."
The care offered should be comprehensive, Morris believes. Yet he has no control over how such clinics may be operated in other locales, and he doesn't think it would be appropriate to get into franchising (although the Church Health Center name and logo are trademarked). What he's trying to do with the conference is to provide guidelines that he hopes will be followed.
"There's not any point in everybody having to reinvent the wheel," Morris says. "That why we're doing this [conference]. You can take the basic principles of what we've done and make it work in any city in America."
by Jacqueline Marino
When the Salvation Army's men's shelter closed three months ago, the Memphis Union Mission found itself having to turn away about 30 homeless men each night. To help meet the need for services, the mission underwent an emergency expansion, adding eight more beds and converting its day room into an overnight shelter.
In the last month, Reverend Mark Calhoun, the organization's president, says his total client base has increased from 120 per night to about 170. Along with six other local charities, the mission has tried to fill the homeless-services gap left when the Salvation Army temporarily closed last week.
The groups will continue to serve the Salvation Army's clients until the 97-year-old organization completes the move to a temporary facility at 715 Jackson. The Salvation Army's former building at 200 Monroe is being demolished to make way for the new downtown baseball stadium. Marianne Ayrault, public-relations director, says the emergency family shelter should reopen November 10th.
The Salvation Army, which received $470,000 from the building's sale, bought the former nursing home for $225,000. The proceeds for the sale will be applied to the moving expenses and to the organization's capital campaign. The organization hopes to build a larger permanent facility in the next two to three years.
Even when the Salvation Army's 47-bed family shelter was open, only about 20 percent of homeless families were receiving needed services, says Peter Baxter, executive director of Partners for the Homeless. When it temporarily closed its doors, more than half the emergency beds for women and children in the city became inaccessible.
Community agencies responded by busing homeless families to the Union Mission's retreat facility in North Memphis every evening. Calvary Street Ministry, which handles case management for homeless women and children, has seen its caseload double since the Salvation Army began cutting services.
While Malcolm McRae, the street ministry's director, says he believes most of the Salvation Army's former clients are receiving services, he says the patchwork system is "very awkward."
"We'd hate to do this for any length of time," McRae says. "It's hard moving people around so much. They don't know where the point of entry is.
"But it is very encouraging to see the groups all come together and step up what they usually do to help out."
When the Salvation Army reopens, it will have 26 beds for women and children. Nine more will be added in February. Its men's shelter will not reopen until the organization builds a permanent facility.
In addition to the efforts of the mission, the street ministry, and Partners for the Homeless, the city's Division of Housing and Community Development has provided $20,000 for lodging, food, and transportation for homeless people during the transition period. Memphis Family Shelter and Memphis Interfaith Hospitality Network have provided shelter and assistance. The Food Bank has donated food to the family shelter. And Bellevue Baptist Church has given $250 to help pay for transportation.
Inman Construction and the Synergy Foundation have also provided assistance.
The Memphis Newspaper Guild, Local 91, cancelled a strike vote last week after a well-attended rally drew media coverage and prompted what union officials consider to be a major concession on the company's part.
Nearly 100 Commercial Appeal employees, including several recognizable reporters, donned blue-and-white T-shirts emblazoned with the guild logo and rallied in front of the CA on their lunch hours Wednesday. Some carried signs that read "Just Practicing."
At the bargaining session the next day, the company agreed not to discipline any employees according to a controversial E.W. Scripps-mandated ethics policy, says guild vice president Dan McQuade.
However, the company raised the union's ire once again after posting a settlement offer on a public bulletin board at the CA Friday. Noting the company's frustration with the guild's response to off-the-record discussions, general counsel Warren Funk wrote that the company is offering 3 percent raises in addition to retroactive pay. And if they act quickly, he wrote, the company would have retro checks available in plenty of time for Christmas shopping.
Although the employees have not received raises since 1995, McQuade says the most critical issue for the guild isn't money, but protecting jobs.
"He [Funk] posted that offer on Halloween, and he might as well have put a razor blade in an apple," McQuade says. "Sure, he's offering retro pay, but he's also saying he would be able to move anybody to any job at any time. It would give them the right to let a manager do anyone's job."
Funk did not return phone calls to his office Monday.
In a related issue, the company has offered to settle the unfair-labor charges brought by the National Labor Relations Board several months ago. Neither the NLRB nor the guild would provide details about the proposed settlement. However, McQuade requested that the NLRB not accept the terms of the settlement. The NLRB has scheduled a hearing on the charges November 17th. The charges include discriminating against guild members and refusing to bargain with the guild.
The 250-member guild represents 450 employees in editorial, inside circulation, business office, general mechanics, advertising, maintenance, and transportation at the CA.
by Jim Hanas
In the wake of its acquisition by Charlotte-based American City Business Journals, the Memphis Business Journal has named a new publisher. Stuart Chamblin plans to take over from MBJ's longtime publisher Barney DuBois on December 1st. In addition to operating MBJ, Chamblin's duties will include oversight of the two other Memphis-based Mid-South Communication's publications, Active Times and Heath Care News.
Chamblin, 41, has spent the last nine years as publisher of Minneapolis/St. Paul City Business, which was acquired by ACBJ last year. Before that, he worked for business journals in Milwaukee and his native San Antonio. With the recent addition of journals in Memphis and Nashville, ACBJ now operates 37 business journals nationwide and is the largest chain of such publications nationwide.
DuBois, who will stay with the paper as a consultant for six months, is out of town and couldn't be reached for comment. He heartily endorsed his successor, however, in a recent issue of MBJ.
"If I had been a one-man search committee," said DuBois, "I would have chosen Stuart Chamblin."
Greenlaw, that half-deserted neighborhood district just north of downtown, may be getting a massive infusion of capital, assuming that the city's division of Housing and Community Development (HCD) gets the federal grant it's hoping for, and the plans that HCD put together in just two months hold together.
It's the most economically distressed neighborhood in Memphis, according to HCD, and an embarrassing sight for downtown proponents. Stretching east from the river to Ayers Street, and north from North Parkway to Chelsea, Greenlaw has an overwhelming 336 vacant lots. Of the existing homes, 12 percent are empty. Of the residents there, only 23 percent actually own their homes.
The city recently applied for the Homeownership Zone grant through the U.S. Division of Housing and Urban Development, and it has to wait until the end of the year to discover if Memphis will be one of the recipients of a $10 million grant to be divided among four applicants.
The colorful maps and fancy charts HCD has created envision a new Greenlaw, a mixed-income community that allows a number of developers to build 314 homes, ranging in price from $40,000 to $95,000. "If we receive the award, we can get started immediately," says Debra Brown, HCD's director. "We want to use the grant money to acquire [vacant] lots and to build new houses on those lots."
The plan is banking on a number of unknowns. Most important is the area's marketability. In the past few years, both nonprofit and private developers have had a tough time selling in Greenlaw, even homes as low as $45,000, and now the city is planning on selling a large number of homes in the $60,000 -$70,000 range. Planners are counting on the reputation of downtown's comeback to extend northward.
The development projects planned would cost much more than the would-be grant could satisfy. Brown says the city has tentative commitments from various banks in the area to leverage much of the money.