amador health center
Incorporated on May 4, 1990, Amador Health Center (AHC) opened its doors as St. Luke’s Health Care Clinic on January 3, 1991 with Dr. Stanislaus Ting as the first volunteer medical director. Our birth led to bigger dreams that blossomed in 1998 into the Mesilla Valley Community of Hope (MVCH) campus on Amador Avenue in Las Cruces. Today, the campus is home to five non-profit agencies who provide services and programs to the homeless and indigent in Dona Ana County. The first phase of the campus featured three anchor agencies – El Caldito Soup Kitchen, St. Luke’s, and a family shelter.
In 2001, Phase 2 housed Jardín de los Niños – a day care center for children who are homeless. In 2005, Phase 3 built three adjoining buildings, which houses Casa de Peregrinos Emergency Food Bank and the MVCH outreach, day shelter, and housing services and programs. MVCH’s day shelter services offer showers, laundry facilities, lockers, and postal services as well as help with disability benefits applications and assistance with housing programs including Camp Hope, a nearby residential tent city.
Each day, hundreds of people use MVCH’s services; many of these people are in various states of homelessness such as living in cars, staying at the nearby mission, living in Camp Hope, on the streets, or in drainage ditches. Daily, the soup kitchen serves lunch to as many as 225 people, and hundreds of families pick up emergency food boxes each week at the emergency food bank. Jardín de los Niños has about 55 children between 6 weeks to 5 years of age on any given day.
AHC is a vital component of the campus, making healthcare easier to access in a holistic, caring environment. Recently, we took over the former family shelter and have renovated the 7,000 sq. feet space to include medical and behavioral health in a comprehensive setting. This is when we changed our name to reflect our new identity. Now we average about 200 visits per week for the six days we are open, which adds up to almost 5,000 visits per year for about 1,000 patients.