Haight Ashbury Free Clinics Explained

Haight Ashbury Free Clinics
Founder:	Willard Harris
Locations:	Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, California
Area Served:	Northern California
Industry:	rehabilitation
Homepage:	Haight Ashbury Free Clinics website

The Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, Inc. is a free health care service provider serving more than 34,000 people in Northern California.

Overview

The organization was founded by Dr. David E. Smith in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, California on June 7, 1967, during the counterculture of the 1960s. As thousands of youth arrived in the city, many were in need of substance abuse treatment, mental health service, and medical attention. The clinic became the model for the modern form of the free clinic. The Clinics are currently composed of four core programs:^[1]

• Medical clinics
• Substance abuse treatment services
• Jail psychiatric services
• Rock medicine: on-site medical services for public events and concerts
• Treasure Island Job Corp Wellness Center

The clinics merged in 2011 with Walden House an addiction treatment organization; in 2012 they adopted a new name: HealthRIGHT 360.^[2]

Famous patients

• Charles Manson

See also

• Berkeley Free Clinic

References

• Book: Weiss , Gregory L. . Grass Roots Medicine: The Story of America's Free Health Clinics . Rowman & Littlefield . 2006 . 0-7425-4070-7.
• How a 'Hippie Clinic' in the Haight-Ashbury Started a Medical Revolution. Carrie Feibel. The California Report. Aug 11, 2017. KQED

Further reading

• Book: Seymour , Richard . The Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinics: Still free after all these years, 1967-1987 . Partisan Press . 1987 . San Francisco, California.
• Book: Smith , David Elvin . John Luce . Love Needs Care: A History of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic and Its Pioneer Role in Treating Drug-Abuse Problems . registration . Little, Brown . 1971 . 0-316-80143-7 . 77-121434.
• Book: Sturges , Clark S. . Dr. Dave: A Profile of David E. Smith, M.D., Founder of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics . Devil Mountain Books . 1993 . . 0-915685-08-6 . registration .

External links

• Haight Ashbury Free Clinics - HealthRIGHT 360
• Haight Ashbury Free Clinics website 2007 40th anniversary archive

Notes and References

1. Web site: Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, Inc. . 2007-09-30 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20070927011404/http://www.hafci.org/ . 2007-09-27.
2. Web site: Our Mission: History. HealthRIGHT360 . November 28, 2018.