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. The gift kicks off Circle the City’s Year of Transformation campaign which is aimed at driving growth amidst a rapidly changing healthcare environment. The campaign will 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.
“It is so appropriate that we are kicking off our Year of Transformation campaign with this generous gift from The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation,” said Circle the City’s Chief Executive Officer Brandon Clark. “Bob and Renee’s support of Circle the City over the years has been instrumental in expanding our services, and we are grateful of their continued confidence in us and the work we are doing to care for individuals in need.”
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. 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.
In addition to providing financial support for the organization’s existing array of innovative programs, Circle the City’s Year of Transformation campaign aims to raise $5 million to launch a second freestanding medical respite facility, a new site of primary healthcare for the homeless, an innovative embedded healthcare pilot project in the greater Mesa area and to enhance administrative capacity to support these initiatives. Once implemented, this growth will enable Circle the City to serve more than 10,000 men, women and children experiencing homelessness each year.
“Circle the City is offering critical care to people in our community who are often overlooked,” said businesswoman and philanthropist Renee Parsons. “Everyone deserves a safe place to recover after a time of illness and a chance for a fresh start in life.”
Circle the City’s services not only make a meaningful impact on the individual lives of those patients served, but are also incredibly beneficial to the public healthcare system as a whole. 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: circlethecity.org.
