Pride Month Spotlight: Howard Brown Health

To celebrate Pride Month, the Trust will be spotlighting LGBTQ-serving organizations that contribute to fostering a safe and inclusive community by responding to the most pressing needs of Chicago’s LGBTQ community. Check back throughout the month for more profiles.

Founded in 1974, Howard Brown Health is one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ organization, providing more than 40,000 adults and youth with access to health and social services including primary medical care, behavioral health, research, HIV/STI prevention, youth services, elder services, and community initiatives.

The organization was started by a group of medical students from the Chicago Gay Medical Students Association who had a desire to help Chicago’s gay community. Since its founding, Howard Brown has been a regional and national public health leader. From participating in research that led to the first hepatitis B vaccine, to becoming Chicago’s primary center for HIV information and treatment during the AIDS crisis, to developing and implementing the city of Chicago’s AIDS Hotline, Howard Brown has been a place where members of the LGBTQ can count on for quality care.

In 2015 Howard Brown Health was named a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC).

Today, it operates 11 centers across the entire Chicago region, including five centers serving the south and west sides of Chicago.

Howard Brown Health was one of the many community organizations that collaborated on the 2019 Chicago LGBTQ Community Needs Assessment, which was funded by the Trust and informs the annual grant cycle of the LGBTQ Community Fund, established in 2010 and consists of a group of donors united to support the Chicago region’s LGBTQ community. 

The Trust has been a supporter of Howard Brown Health for more than 40 years supporting its general operations, projects, and programs, as well as the development of its Broadway Youth Center, which opened in 2004. During the COVID-19 pandemic grant making supported the operation of six COVID-19 community care stations providing free testing across Chicago, as well as primary care telehealth and basic needs programming.