The Whitman-Walker Max Robinson Center, located on the St. Elizabeths East Campus in Southeast, D.C. has been approved for $22.5 million in federal funding by the U.S. Department of Treasury, city and federal officials announced on Dec. 11.
“This investment in Whitman-Walker will spur innovation and create new career and care opportunities for our residents—right here on the St. Elizabeths East Campus,” said D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.
The funding for the Max Robinson Center comes as the St. Elizabeths East Campus experiences a revitalization in the working-class Congress Heights neighborhood of Ward 8.
The center formally opened in September and joins such venues as the Entertainment & Sports Arena, the new 801 Men’s Shelter, the District Townhouses, the Residences at St. Elizabeths, the Sycamore & Oak retail village and the construction of the Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center, a George Washington University health facility that is scheduled to open in 2025.
The Max Robinson Center
The center is named after famed newscaster Max Robinson, the first African American to anchor a major news broadcast and was a co-founder of the National Association of Black Journalists. Robinson died of complications due to AIDS on December 20, 1988.
For many years, Whitman-Walker operated a Max Robinson Center in the southern section of the Anacostia neighborhood, on Martin Luther King Jr., Avenue SE.
The new Max Robinson Center is designed to serve residents in the surrounding neighborhoods, a Whitman-Walker official said.
“We are able to provide services for an additional 10,000 patients a year,” said Rama Keita, community health and wellness director at Whitman-Walker. “I am incredibly proud of this building. This expansion will help us make the great Ward 8 even greater.”
The center also houses the Whitman-Walker Institute, which works closely with residents to seek feedback and to promote research that reflects community experiences and needs.
Whitman-Walker officials say the new funding, a result of the Capital Projects Fund of the American Rescue Plan, will allow the building of two multi-purpose community spaces that will be health- and wellness-oriented, plus 40 exam and consult rooms, eight dental suites, and 23 group and psychotherapy rooms that will enable expanded telemedicine services. The investment will give the center the chance to offer workforce training programs, education, and skills in partnership with local universities for those interested in administrative and health care roles.
Joseph Wender, the director of the Capital Projects Fund at the Treasury Department, mentioned that the $22.5 million is part of the Biden administration’s effort to economically uplift communities after the coronavirus pandemic.
Naseema Shafi, CEO of Whitman-Walker and Cindy Lewin, the interim CEO of the organization, expressed gratitude to the officials at the Treasury Department and the District for the funding and “for this once-in-a-lifetime commitment.”
“Our new Max Robinson Center is a modern and welcoming health care and research facility built for the purpose of expanding health, research and job readiness training for communities with disproportionate health outcomes,” the pair said in a statement. “From Max we will be able to expand care to 10,000 more people annually; be fully prepared for any future health emergency or outbreak and work to eradicate health disparities for residents in Wards 7 and 8 and throughout the city. The new site will also provide necessary access to more capacity for community-based research that ensures groundbreaking scientific research. This historic investment at this critical time, builds a future for residents of the District of Columbia.”