Community leaders and about 70 others gathered at East Bay Community Action Program's Head Start building on Monday to celebrate a $3 million project that will build a new health care center in Newport, replacing the current space at 19 Broadway.

The new facility, which is planned to open in early 2012, will be built north of the Head Start headquarters and across from the Community College of Rhode Island's Newport campus on John H. Chafee Boulevard.

Members of EBCAP and Head Start spoke about their excitement for the project's approval and the potential it has to serve Newport and its surrounding communities.

Several city and state representatives attended the forum, including Mayor Jeanne-Marie Napolitano, Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed, Rep. Peter Martin, and Councilor Charles Duncan. Napolitano, Weed, and Martin were on the panel, as well as EBCAP Board of Directors President Jim Vincent and EBCAP Medical Director Dr. Sarah Fessler. 

"It's not going to change overnight. . . But this grant is a start," said Weed during her speech. "I'm very proud. We owe that to our citizens and I'm happy to be a part of it."

Newport received the funds as a part of the $1.5 billion Health Care Reform appropriation for community-based health center projects across the county. The facility will be 11,000 square feet and will increase examination rooms from five to eight. It will also offer primary and behavioral health care services. The center will be approximately four times the size of the current health care center located at 19 Broadway.

The current EBCAP center serves over 2,000 medical patients a year. According to EBCAP officials, their target population is approximately 42,000 low-income residents who live in a 10-city service area. The target population has a higher uninsured percentage than the rest of Rhode Island.

According to the Poverty Institute, about 20 percent of the service area's population has no insurance, while the Rhode Island average is 13 percent. In the past three years, EBCAP has had a 34 percent increase in patients and anticipates a 100 percent increase over a four year period in congruence to the new center, officials say. Patients will pay on a sliding scale based on income.

During Rep. Martin's speech, he said that the keys to a successful society are housing, health care, education and leadership. We [Newport] have all those things, he said.

"A common threat in this community is leadership," Martin said, in regards to the successful planning and organization of Newport's projects, including the center.

Mayor Napolitano, who was formerly the president of New Visions, which merged with EBCAP in 2000, addressed the audience on the health care center and her personal relationship towards it. She said she hadn't written script, but was speaking from the heart.

"I am so proud of our [New Visions'] affiliation with East Bay Community Action," she said. Napolitano also urged the audience to consider the new Pell School as an extension of the development and progress of Newport's projects.

"Forget about the personalities and the politics," she told the audience, encouraging them to vote in favor of the school. 

EBCAP recently completed another project in Providence. Six apartments for individuals and families as well as two Head Start classrooms will be operated by East Bay Coalition for the Homeless, which is an EBCAP program.

Following the forum, members of the panel and the community attended a tree-planting ceremony outside the building to mark the beginning of the new center.