Family Service League plans $8M Bay Shore health center
An artist rendering of the Health and Wellness Center, a proposed health clinic in Bay Shore to treat people dealing with mental illness or drug abuse. Credit: Family Service League
Family Service League Inc. plans to construct a building in Bay Shore where people being treated for mental illness or drug abuse can receive medical care for themselves and their children, officials said.
The league, based in Huntington Station, is expanding its partnership with Northwell Health’s Southside Hospital in Bay Shore to provide doctors specializing in internal medicine and pediatrics five days per week.
League staff will continue to provide social work and behavioral care services.
The new Health and Wellness Center, valued at about $8 million, received preliminary approval last month for tax-exempt bond financing from Suffolk County’s Economic Development Corp. New York State also has agreed to provide a $500,000 grant.
League president Karen Boorshtein said the wellness center “will reduce the number of ER visits and reduce inpatient hospitalization” by league clients because medical care will be available nearby.
The 13,000-square-foot wellness center, to open in January 2019, will be adjacent to the league’s Iovino Family Center, which offers social services to the homeless and those battling mental illness and drug and alcohol addiction. It also provides prekindergarten and other education services.
Boorshtein told the development corporation’s board last month that the league helps more than 50,000 people per year, including 1,700 per week at the Iovino center. She predicted the league will serve 300 to 400 more people in Bay Shore with the wellness center.
The league has 21 locations, mostly in Suffolk.
Boorshtein said the wellness center will add 25 people to the league’s payroll of 547 by 2020. Records show employees earn, on average, $49,360 per year, excluding medical insurance and retirement benefits.
“With the changes in health care, we felt we needed to continue to ramp up the integrated care,” where clients receive psychological and medical care in adjacent centers or in a single center, Boorshtein said.
Previously, Suffolk issued tax-exempt bonds for the league in 2012 and 2004.
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