El CENTRAL Hispanic News
By Michael Gutierrez
Senator Slotkin Delivers Federal Honor to CHASS as Funding Fights Loom Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin visited CHASS Clinic on Thursday, August 14, during National Health Clinic Week, to honor the center’s 55th Anniversary as well as to present CHASS Board Chair Carmensita Buentello with a formal Certificate of Congratulations. The official U.S. Senate recognition certificate acknowledges the center’s decades of service as a community anchor providing healthcare and support to Detroit residents, especially those most in need. The award comes weeks after the center was honored with the Spirit of Detroit Award by District 6 City Councilmember Gabriela Santiago-Romero.
Standing in front of CHASS’s rooftop community garden at the end of her tour, Senator Slotkin found herself impressed with the facility’s offerings. “You have all the state-of-the-art medical things you would expect to see in a health facility, but then we’re standing right in front of a community garden where they grow their own food and teach nutrition classes across the hall,” she observed. “That is not a normal thing I’m used to seeing in a local hospital.”
Senator Slotkin also noted “We heard some amazing firsthand stories,” including from Buentello, who came to CHASS as an 18-year-old patient and now leads the institution as the first Latina woman to chair its board in the center’s 55-year history. “I don’t get to cut you up in 40 pieces to send you to 50 clinics. You can get it all here,” explained Buentello about CHASS’s services. “It’s easy to just give a client a medication, whatever, but it takes more effort to ask that client, ‘Are you able to make ends meet? Are you being fed? Are you able to get your medications? Are your children in school?" That wraparound approach to healthcare – where the whole person is treated, not just their symptoms – has defined CHASS or more than five decades and earned them the federal recognition Slotkin delivered last Thursday, but it came with a warning.
Senator Slotkin cautioned that CHASS now faces its biggest funding challenges in decades with cuts that could devastate community health centers across the country serving vulnerable populations.“Places like CHASS are significantly at risk,” the Senator explained. “They see a major underserved population. They see uninsured people. They serve a ton of people on Medicaid.”
New work requirements for SNAP benefits start this September, meaning some CHASS patients will discover their bridge cards don’t work at grocery store checkouts. Medicaid cuts could cost Michigan hospitals $6 billion over the next decade, according to the Michigan Hospital Association, forcing impossible choices about which services to maintain.
The ripple effects reach everyone, said Senator Slotkin. When more people lose insurance coverage, they still show up at hospitals during emergencies. Private insurers respond by raising rates on employer-provided plans — those notices are already going out for 10-17% increases starting January 1, 2026.
“Each organization that I visit, each hospital, they’re looking at which areas frankly bring in the fewest dollars, which serve the fewest people, and how do they make really difficult decisions on what to cut,” Slotkin said.
During her visit, Senator Slotkin met with CHASS leadership to strategize how they can work together to prevent as many cuts as possible. With Michigan’s state budget still unresolved and the requirement to pass a balanced budget, the pressure intensifies when federal dollars disappear — and as Senator Slotkin starkly noted, “Michigan state’s budget is 48% federal dollars.”
Despite the funding uncertainties ahead, CHASS’s commitment to Southwest Detroit remains unwavering. “We turn nobody away,” Buentello emphasized. “We help everyone. If you ask for help, we’re here to provide it.”
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