Fenway Health

In 1971, Northeastern University students opened a drop-in center in the basement of a building owned by the Christian Science Church. They named the center the Fenway Community Health Center and staffed it with volunteer medical students. By 1973, demand had grown to the point where Fenway incorporated as a freestanding health center and sought a larger space at 16 Haviland Street. Today, this space serves as Fenway: Sixteen, the home of Fenway's HIV Counseling, Testing & Referrals Program, Health Navigation Services, Helplines, and gay and bisexual men's health programs. The 16 Haviland Street location has since been closed as Fenway continues its attempts at reaching a broader audience than its traditional LGBT+ clients. In 1978, the center became fully licensed by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.[4]

Fenway became involved in treating HIV/AIDS patients in the early 1980s. In 1981, Fenway made the first diagnosis of AIDS in New England. Fenway's involvement with advocacy and HIV/AIDS research led to its 1994 selection by the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases as one of eight sites recruiting participants for the first clinical trials of an HIV vaccine.[3]

In 2001, Fenway launched The Fenway Institute, a national interdisciplinary center dedicated to ensuring cultural competence in health care for the LGBT community through research and evaluation, training and education, and policy and advocacy.

Fenway Health today

Fenway's current Ansin Building home at 1340 Boylston Street in Boston opened its doors in 2009.[5] At ten stories and 100,000 square feet (9,300 m²), it is the largest LGBT health and research facility in the United States.[6]

In 2013, Fenway Health added two organizations to the Fenway family: the LGBT Aging Project and the AIDS Action Committee.[7][8]

In December 2017, Fenway's CEO, Steven Boswell, resigned due to his handling of complaints about a prominent doctor who allegedly sexually harassed and bullied staff members of the health clinic. Boswell reportedly ignored a recommendation by an independent law firm to fire the doctor with numerous complaints of harassment.[9] The center's board appointed M. Jane Powers, Fenway's director of behavioral health, as interim CEO, while a search is conducted for a permanent replacement.

Services at Fenway Health include medical and mental health, dental, eye care and pharmacy. Fenway also offers HIV prevention and health navigation services,[10] and a Violence Recovery Program.[11]

Fenway is also home to the National Institutes of Health-funded Center for Population Research in LGBT Health.[12]

The Fenway Community Health Center records are located in the Northeastern University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections Department, Boston, Massachusetts.[13]

In 2007, the American College of Physicians published The Fenway Guide to LGBT Health, edited by Dr. Harvey Makadon, Dr. Kenneth Mayer and Hilary Goldhammer of the Fenway Institute at Fenway Health, and Dr. Jennifer Potter of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. "We realized this was an important area that wasn't being covered," Dr. Steven Weinberger, senior vice president for medical education and publishing of the American College of Physicians, said in an interview at the time. "It has not been taught in medical school...it sort of falls through the cracks in terms of the standard curriculum."[12]

For People, Not For Profit: A History of Fenway Health's First Forty Years was written by former board member Tom Martorelli and published in 2012. The foreword is written by Rita Mae Brown.[14]

In 2017, Fenway Health published a policy brief describing the effect that the American Health Care Act of 2017 would have on LGBT people and people living with HIV.[15]

• Thomas Mortarelli, For People, Not For Profit: A History of Fenway Health's First Forty Years (AuthorHouse, 2012), ISBN 978-1477217016