Church leaders did that by working in partnership with the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation and the Community Healthcare Network, a federally qualified health center in the city, for Medicare and Medicaid services.
“We wanted to use the site as model for Gov. Andrew Cuomo, so that he knew that religious institution sites could be used to positively impact communities of color,” O’Connor said, “and that we have long roots and trusted relationship in the communities we serve.”
Since opening a month ago, the church site has tested more than 2,000 people in a community that has a high number of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Black and Latino people in the city are twice as likely to die from coronavirus than whites — and 75 percent of those doing frontline work during the pandemic are people of color.