Americares to open bigger clinic in Norwalk to offer free care to low-income patients

The Hour – Tuesday, January 7, 2025
By Kalleen Rose Ozanic

NORWALK — A new clinic will increase health care access in the new year for low-income uninsured residents who are “totally falling through the cracks of the health care system.”

That’s according to Americares Free Clinics Executive Director Karen Gottlieb, who opened the nonprofit’s first ever clinic, in Norwalk, when she joined in November 1994. The new clinic at 10 Mott Ave., at about 3,000 square feet, is double the size of the old clinic and will provide desperately-needed care to the community, Gottlieb said.

Since the first clinic, located in the South Norwalk Community Center at 98 Main St., closed in July 2023, the executive director said, roughly 70 percent of the site’s patients have continued their care at another Americares clinic in Stamford — where parent nonprofit Americares is headquartered. Actor Bryan Cranston hosted one of the nonprofit’s fundraisers in April.

With a $10.5 million renovation plan, the old site’s building will become an indoor public recreation center. Construction at the new 10 Mott Ave. site will be done by January to accept patients in February, Gottlieb said. It will have a classroom, waiting room, five exam rooms, “good parking,” and will be accessible by public transportation, she said.

Gottlieb said it feels incredible to have been leading Americares Free Clinics, especially with a new and improved clinic coming to the city where it all started just months after from the 30-year anniversary of the clinic and the start of her leadership.

Patients 18 and up can access completely free primary care at the clinic, which Gottlieb said is critical in catching and diagnosing chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol and obesity.
Through partnerships with Quest Diagnostics and Norwalk Hospital, Americares Free Clinics’ patients can also get lab work, emergency care, diagnostic testing, specialty care, free medication and more, Gottlieb said.

Access to these services is critical, the executive director said. Patients eligible for care make less than 300 percent of the federal poverty level; have no insurance; don’t qualify for Medicare, Medicaid, or disaster insurance; and fall within the clinic’s area of care, Gottlieb said.

In Norwalk, Gottlieb said eligible individuals must make less than $38,000, while a family of four must make less than $78,000.

“Our patients are making really difficult choices every single day,” the executive director said. “Whether it’s to pay their rent or keep clothes on their children and food in the kitchen. They’re making tough choices.”

With free care and medication, Gottlieb said clinic patients become healthier and more control of their lives. She said that offering care to low income community members is especially important in addressing the needs of different demographics.

“A lot of our patients are immigrants,” Gottlieb said. “Documentation status does not matter to us, if they live in this country and the area that we serve. We take care of residents of the state, not citizens. People who live in the state and are falling through the cracks of the health care.”

About 90 percent of patients are Hispanic, Gottlieb. She said there is a large Spanish-speaking population in Fairfield County, Portuguese-speaking population in Danbury — where there is another clinic that opened in 1997 — and the clinic in Bridgeport that opened in 2023 has the most diverse slate of patients. The Stamford clinic opened in 2014, Gottlieb said.

Americares Free Clinics seeks volunteers to be nurses, primary care specialists, and other providers who can offer interpretation services, Gottlieb said.

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