Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Healthcare (MLKCH) opened in 2015 as a private, nonprofit, safety net hospital and health system that provides emergency, internal medicine, general surgery, heart care, infectious disease, maternity, and orthopedics via its 131-bed hospital and doctors’ offices. MLKCH improves local health through a variety of community-based programs including mobile health screenings, nutrition, men’s health programs, classes and support groups, street medicine and in-home care visits for patients with access challenges.

Broadstreet's Equitable Health Fund has invested $5.7 million of NMTC equity to expand its Emergency Department (ED) as well as its Interventional Radiology and Cardiac Laboratory. The expanded ED will include an observation Unit, an Acute Psychiatric Stabilization unit (APS), and additional emergency department exam rooms. The expansion of the Interventional Radiology and Cardiac Laboratory will include a new Catheterization Lab and a dedicated Interventional Radiology suite.

Broadstreet is also providing a $250,000 social determinants of health (SDOH) grant to provide accessible healthcare to the residents of South Los Angeles, who are disproportionately disadvantaged by inequalities in health care.

The Broadstreet Equitable Health Fund is capitalized by United Healthcare and invests in NMTC transactions with a clear focus to increase access to quality health care for uninsured individuals and those living on low incomes.

Large areas of South Los Angeles, including the MLKCH service area, are federally designated as a Healthcare Professional Shortage Area, a Medically Underserved Area, or both. Residents struggle to access preventive, primary and specialty care, often using the emergency department because of the lack of outpatient services. The community has some of the lowest life expectancies and the worst health outcomes in Los Angeles County.

MLKCH’s Emergency Department is one of the busiest EDs in the county, serving more than 110,000 patients annually (100% low-income people), while being originally designed to provide services for only 40,000 annual patients. MLKCH’s new APS unit is a 16-bed observation unit and a 12-chair Acute Psychiatric Stabilization Unit housed within the MLKCH’s hospital emergency department. The APS unit will provide a calming, healing, comfortable setting completely distinct from the medical ED. With the new APS Unit, MLKCH will stop using vital inpatient beds for emergency mental health stabilization services and instead will be able to offer best-in-class treatment to patients experiencing psychiatric episodes in a therapeutic setting, stabilizing patients over a shorter period and requiring fewer return visits.