[caption id="attachment_100044" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Sutter Health donated its Warrack east Santa Rosa former hospital, seen here in 2007, to Social Advocates for Youth in September. (credit: Kent Porter, The Press Democrat)[/caption]
SANTA ROSA -- Sutter Health on Wednesday announced that it had completed the donation of the former Warrack Hospital to Social Advocates for Youth (SAY), which provides education and housing for at-risk youth in Sonoma County.
In 2008, Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa closed the Warrack Hospital at 2449 Summerfield road in order to consolidate services at its Chanate facility. The closure left the majority of the building's west side vacant. Sutter Pacific Medical Foundation Lab, X-Ray and the Institute for Health and Healing occupy the east wing of the building and will remain as neighbors to SAY.
In 2012, SAY supporters approached Sutter to seek use of the Warrack building as a youth center, to be called the Dream Center. SAY offers counseling, employment and education services. The Dream Center will provide up to 63 units of affordable housing for homeless and former foster youth aged 18-24 year-old. To convert the facility to housing, a remodeling is scheduled over the winter months. The center is slated to open in late 2015.
“Donating the former Warrack campus to help struggling youth turn their lives around is absolutely the right thing to do," said Mike Purvis, Sutter Medical Center's chief administrative officer in Santa Rosa. "We are proud and excited to have been able to contribute to the success of our community.”
The Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency program, sponsored by Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa, is working with the Vista Clinic and SAY to provide mobile health services to homeless youth.
“It’s wonderful to offer greatly needed services to these young people through the mobile clinic. They’re able to receive vaccinations and prescription medications, advice about health care issues, and insurance,” said Matt Martin, SAY executive director.
Sutter's new hospital in north Santa Rosa is scheduled to open on Oct. 25 as Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital.
