Humboldt Park Wellness Center: One step away from another milestone

By Migdalis Pérez

There is no better investment on this planet than investing in the health of an entire community. José R. Sánchez was aware of this long before coming to Chicago to rescue what is now Humboldt Park Health, the hospital he directs.

His experience leading five hospitals in New York helped shape his vision of creating a solid institution that effectively serves its community. From being a financially intensive care hospital, Sánchez managed to turn HPH into the only hospital in the Midwest with a Health Equity Certification from the Joint Commission, recently granted.

The path to revival took time. Since 2010, Sánchez and his team have worked tirelessly to improve the institution’s health services, stabilize it financially, increase efficiency with more technology, and add more physicians, all while engaging with the community.

Above all, he noted, it was about “improving services so that patients and physicians were satisfied and so that the community had confidence in what was being offered.” This laid the groundwork “to create an institution that today has prestige, recognition, and a name.”

However, his dreams did not end there. In 2019, in conjunction with advisors, he created “a master plan that had recommendations from the community, employees, and even political representatives.” It was time to give the green light to create the Wellness Center, which will open its doors next September.

“It’s a place where Humboldt Park families can spend the day together. It’s a place to improve the health of city residents, where they can exercise and also receive talks about how to stay healthy, focus on a healthy diet, and lose weight,” he explained.

Focused on this goal, Sánchez sought financial help and secured five million dollars from the hospital to materialize it. State Senator Omar Aquino, he said, was responsible for those state funds reaching the institution. The state of Illinois contributed 19 million, and the City of Chicago cooperated with another 2.5 million for a $30 million project.

Currently, “work is being done on the center’s interior, reflecting well-known Latino artists, such as Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and others. Because this is part of the culture within Humboldt Park, it also integrates within the designation that the governor [J.B. Pritzker] gave this community as Puerto Rico Town,” he said.

The executive, who is of Puerto Rican origin, also said this Wellness Center “will also have an economic impact” because it will employ around thirty people in addition to the thousand already employed in the hospital, most of whom reside precisely in Humboldt Park.

Defined by Sánchez as a health ecosystem, “this will be the most impactful project in this community for decades.” And now, he emphasized, “only the seven million dollars remaining need to be obtained,” a goal that the hospital gala will contribute to, which celebrates its tenth year this year, and whose funds will be entirely directed to the wellness center.

Despite the construction, the project still needs one million dollars to complete and fully offer essential services to the community. “I would like people to help us raise funds and see that they are well invested in the community. I believe this is a model project for the rest of the nation. We are creating health equality and a concept that has never been talked about,” relative “to the impact that the environment where you are born, raised, and educated has on your well-being.” Proudly, he concluded: “This Wellness Center project brings it all.”