HEALTH CLINICS

Hosted in Aurora Commons drop-in space in partnership with UW Harborview Medical Center and supported by the Department of Health and the City of Seattle. Everything we do is driven by the neighbors we serve. We empower them to define what they need, and then we provide a beautiful, safe, trauma-informed space to meet those needs.

Clinical Services:

- Facilitating enrollment in insurance and registration at University of Washington Medicine
- Family planning and contraceptive services
- Wound Care and abscess drainage
- Labs and imaging
- Foot washing
- Medication management for chronic medical conditions such as Hypertension and Diabetes
- Vaccines
- Sexually Transmitted Infection testing - Chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis
- HIV and viral hepatitis screening
- Hepatitis C treatment
- HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP)
- Referrals to detox, treatment and housing
- Integrated treatment of the whole patient, including those with opiate use disorder
- Pre-Natal Care

Creating the Clinic Partnership

Since Aurora Commons opened in 2011, we have built trusted relationships with hundreds of female-identifying street-based sex workers who are experiencing commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) on Aurora Avenue N. We have learned from them that homelessness, poverty, drug dependence, and violent victimization create the need for a variety of health and social services, yet simultaneously serve as barriers to accessing these very services. Barriers include both structural and process factors (e.g. travel costs, office hours, social stigma) and individual social and clinical factors (e.g. drug use, mental stability, lack of trust and fear in the traditional healthcare system).

As we continued to witness both the need and barriers to healthcare, we began to leverage our relationships at the Commons by directly involving these women in the development and implementation of what we now call the Safe, Healthy, Empowered (SHE) Clinic. SHE Clinic opened in July 2018 with support from the Pacific Hospital Preservation & Development Authority (PHPDA) and provides a crucial link between UW Harborview Medical Center and the Aurora Commons through an innovative, accessible, and non-judgmental healthcare delivery model that is overcoming these barriers. Since its inception, the SHE Clinic patient roster has been full and continued to grow. Simultaneously the need for a companion clinic offering healthcare for our male-identifying and gender-nonconforming neighbors became increasingly apparent as these neighbors asked for the same services offered by SHE Clinic.

In the spring of 2021, Aurora Commons was able to expand into the retail space next door, allowing for program space expansion and, with the support of Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE), the buildout of a permanent clinic space in the Commons. In November 2021, Aurora Clinic opened on Mondays & Tuesdays offering comprehensive, wraparound healthcare for our male-identifying and gender-nonconforming neighbors. The SHE Clinic & Aurora Clinic staff and Aurora Commons Staff work closely together to provide wraparound services for each neighbor accessing the clinics.