Callen-Lorde is the global leader in LGBTQ healthcare. Since the days of Stonewall, we have been transforming lives in LGBTQ communities through excellent comprehensive care, provided free of judgment and regardless of ability to pay. In addition, we are continuously pioneering research, advocacy and education to drive positive change around the world, because we believe healthcare is a human right.
Callen-Lorde’s grassroots heritage dates back nearly 50 years to the St. Mark’s Community Clinic and Gay Men’s Health Project - two volunteer based clinics that provided LGBTQ sensitive, free health services primarily related to sexual health. In response to the AIDS crisis, these two clinics merged in 1983 to form Community Health Project, Inc, located in a 3,500 square foot space in an unoccupied building at 208 West 13th Street, which later that year officially becomes the organization now called The LGBT Community Center.
In 1996, with a loan from the Primary Care Development Corporation, CHP purchased a 27,000 square foot condemned building at 356 West 18th Street that would become our new primary care home. After a gut renovation, we occupied the space in 1998 under a New York State Article 28 license and officially became the Michael Callen-Audre Lorde Community Health Center, dedicated to the memories of Michael Callen, HIV advocate, founding member of the acapella group The Flirtations, and founder of the People with AIDS Coalition, and Audre Lorde, poet laureate of New York State, health and human rights activist, and breast cancer survivor.
