Reviving Third Ward’s Riverside Hospital

Riverside’s second life was possible thanks to collaboration from elected officials, philanthropy, private sector leaders, and Third Ward residents.

This month, local officials broke ground on a project to transform the long-shuttered Riverside General Hospital into a health care and community hub for Third Ward, the Houston Chronicle reports(opens in new window). The project, years in the making, serves as an example of how entities across multiple sectors — including residents, elected officials, philanthropy, and private sector leaders — can work together to listen to and respond to the needs of a community.

Riverside opened in 1927 as Houston Negro Hospital, the first local nonprofit hospital for Black patients and one of the only places where Black physicians were allowed to practice in Houston at the time. Many in the Third Ward community were born there and had ties to the hospital – either through its health care services or its role as a community center. It shuttered in 2015 due to financial and legal troubles.

In 2017, while working with stakeholders in Third Ward (on strategies to prevent displacement of longtime residents due to gentrification), Houston Endowment staff learned about the impact of the hospital’s closure — it left a hole in the community and a huge gap in access to health care, including mental and behavioral health services.

Then-state Rep. Garnet Coleman, who represented Third Ward, shared his vision for Riverside Hospital to reopen and bring primary care and other health services back to the community. Over the next year, with support from Rep. Coleman and then-Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, Houston Endowment worked with Riverside Hospital trustees, legal and real estate experts, and lienholders to enable Harris County to acquire the site out of bankruptcy and to develop plans for the building’s future operations and financing. Ultimately, Harris County purchased the hospital with a grant from Houston Endowment in spring 2018. Another grant from Houston Endowment funded a needs assessment of Third Ward residents by then-Rice University health policy scholar Dr. Quianta Moore, determining that future services should address not only health care needs, but other social determinants of health inequalities impacting the Third Ward community.

Today, under the direction of Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis, the county continues to lead this work. The Riverside campus will eventually house a clinic, ACCESS Harris County(opens in new window) (a holistic care program that serves the most vulnerable community members), and a new headquarters building for Harris County Public Health.

“Houston Endowment was committed to playing a role in returning this asset to the community — both Third Ward and the larger Houston region — and we are excited to see the project enter its next phase,” said Ann B. Stern, president and CEO of Houston Endowment. “As a place-based funder, we endeavor to learn about and respond to what the community needs most, and to be a connector and convener across sectors. That spirit of collaboration enables this project to continue to progress today.”

Read the Houston Chronicle story.(opens in new window)