Under the glass-panel cross that adorns the front of the former church in Southeast Newport News, there’s a brand new sign: “Walk-ins welcome.”
It’s not a spiritual invitation, but a physical one. Where once were pews and prayer books, now are medical exam rooms and therapy equipment.
Sentara Health cut the ribbon on its Newport News Community Care Center last weekend. It’s the sixth such office meant to bring medical care into underserved communities and the company’s first on the Peninsula.
The opening is big news for Flora Bailey, who said she’s always sick but hasn’t had a primary care doctor for years.
“I know the emergency room is getting tired of me,” she said.
The 64 year old lives a mile from the new center. She remembers when there were several doctors offices and pharmacies in Southeast Newport News, but they’ve been shuttered for decades.
The community was once a hub of life and commerce in Newport News but weathered decades of disinvestment and economic hardship driven largely by segregation.
More than a quarter of residents in Southeast Newport News now live below the poverty line and life expectancies are a decade shorter than the state average, partially as a result of a long-time lack of accessible healthcare.
“Health and wellbeing are not just the absence of disease,” said Jordan Asher, Sentara’s chief clinical officer and executive vice president. “We want to create life versus just preventing a state of death.”
Asher said community care clinics are meant to extend the reach of Sentara’s medical services. They also address things that don’t immediately seem like medical issues, like housing instability, financial issues, food insecurity and transportation problems, which influence 80% of a person’s health and wellbeing, according to Asher.
“All those stressors are really what we are here with this clinic to help,” he said.
The new facility includes a food pantry run by the Peninsula Food Bank and community space on the second floor where people can access other services, like help finding housing.
The Newport News facility is Senatara’s largest community care center so far and the first with a physical therapy center, which will start out seeing patients three days per week.
Julie Kosiorek, a physical therapist, said they already saw four patients at the Newport News center before the grand opening even happened. The community told Sentara loud and clear that access to physical therapy was a major need.
“For physical therapy, typically patients will come two or three times a week so it's tough for people with transportation issues to access physical therapy,” Kosiorek said.
Bishop Dwight Riddick, the leader of Gethsemane Baptist, stood in that physical therapy room Saturday surrounded by fitness equipment.
“This was part of the fellowship hall,” he said, gazing around to reframe decades’ worth of memories in this new iteration of the church.
“It’s not only strange but exciting to see the conversion take place,” Riddick said. “Brand new life has certainly been breathed into the building.”
Built in 1987, the church served as Gethsemane’s home until 2023, when a growing congregation required the move to a larger church.
Katherine Williams grew up a few blocks away from the church and remembers passing now-closed doctors’ offices along the street as a child.
“There’s just a lot of stuff we had that we don’t have now that they’re bringing back to the community,” said Williams, who now lives in Hampton.
The city is continuing its effort to redevelop a large section of Southeast Newport News, partially funded by tens of millions of dollars from the federal government. The city and associated developers have torn down hundreds of units of public housing and begun replacing them with hundreds more mixed-income apartments.
The expansive project doesn’t include the areas around Chestnut Avenue.
It was emotional for Williams to see doctors return to Chestnut Avenue. She hopes this is the first domino to fall in reviving this corner of Newport News.
“Usually down here, we don’t see no development,” Williams said. “They need this, because this starts off a chain. Once they get this, the whole avenue changes.”
