Circle the City has received a $500,000 grant from The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation to help sustain and expand its mission of providing compassionate, high-quality healthcare to men, women and children facing homelessness.
Denise Kriese, a physical therapist with Circle the City, works with client Michael Young. Circle the City’s continuum of care includes a 50-bed medical respite center that opened in 2012 to provide a time and place for adults facing homelessness to heal from illnesses and injuries (submitted photo).
The gift kicks off Circle the City’s Year of Transformation campaign, which hopes to raise $5 million to provide funding for both the existing array of services offered at Circle the City, as well as several new initiatives slated for the coming year.
“Every person deserves to be treated with dignity during their time of need,” said American entrepreneur and philanthropist Bob Parsons. “Circle the City offers patients respect and compassion—two things that go a long way in changing someone’s life.”
The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation has a history of backing Circle the City’s efforts to fill critical gaps in healthcare for individuals experiencing homelessness, and this recent grant brings the foundation’s total support to $3 million. A 2015 gift helped fund construction and launch of The Parsons Family Health Center, an innovative family health clinic that provides primary care, integrative behavioral health services, case management and substance abuse intervention to homeless individuals. This community health program also hosts a two exam-room mobile medical clinic that carries Circle the City’s outreach efforts throughout Maricopa County.
Circle the City’s continuum of care includes a 50-bed medical respite center at 333 W. Indian School Road that opened in 2012 to provide a time and place for adults facing homelessness to heal from illnesses and injuries. The medical respite center has been recognized as one of the leading programs of its kind in the United States, and has served as a model for dozens of other emerging programs across the nation. More than just excellent healthcare, the organization helps provide patients with a path out of homelessness.
Patients who are cared for in Circle the City facilities have been shown to incur fewer costs related to future hospitalizations and emergency services. In fact, a recent analysis of 47 patients who received care at Circle the City concluded that the annual cost of care for these individuals was decreased by a total of $1.1 million in the year following engagement with Circle the City.
To learn more about how you can get involved, visit www.circlethecity.org.
