Producer Chuck Lorre Donates $7M To Renovate Venice Family Clinic

VENICE, CA — Venice Family Clinic announced Monday that it plans to modernize its Venice clinic thanks to the largest-ever single donation from television producer Chuck Lorre and the Chuck Lorre Family Foundation.

The renovation at the clinic site at 604 Rose Avenue in Venice will enable the organization to integrate medical, mental health and substance use visits in ways it couldn’t before.

Lorre has been a longtime supporter of the clinic and his family foundation has contributed more than $17 million to the organization over the past 20 years.

“The renovation of our Rose Avenue site is a critical project ensuring that we can provide greater access to health care for our community members who are most vulnerable,” Venice Family Clinic CEO Elizabeth Benson Forer said in a statement.

“Our patients face complex health challenges, and it is vital that we are able to provide them with a space where they can get multiple services in an integrated way," Benson said. "We are grateful that The Chuck Lorre Family Foundation shares our vision.”

Venice Family Clinic acquired the building as its first permanent site in 1983. In November 2021, Venice Family Clinic merged with South Bay Family Health Care.

The clinic at 604 Rose Avenue is one of 17 sites in the clinic’s expanded care network. Programs and services at the Rose Avenue site include primary medical care for adults and children, behavioral health, substance use services, vision services, a pharmacy, COVID-19 testing and vaccines, food distribution and health education.

The modernization of the two-story building will help the clinic meet the emerging and evolving needs in health care. The plan features new team spaces for clinic staff to more effectively collaborate on all aspects of a patient’s complete care plan. The site will provide patients with easier access to services, including a ground floor pharmacy and a community room for fitness classes and counseling groups. The site will also have counseling rooms for visits with mental health therapists, case managers and health educators.

Venice Family Clinic is the primary source of health care on the Westside for people experiencing homelessness, and the renovation will provide improved space for case management, behavioral health, substance use services and showers.

Lorre is an award-winning creator and producer of many of the most successful comedy series in modern television history, including "The Big Bang Theory" and "The Kominsky Method," is a longtime supporter of the clinic. He and his foundation have made donations over the past 20 years to fund the renovations and operations of another clinical site in Venice, the Robert Levine Family Health Center, which is named in honor of Lorre’s father. In 2020, Lorre provided a special $1 million gift in honor of Venice Family Clinic’s 50th anniversary and to rally other contributions to support COVID-19 response efforts early in the pandemic.

“Quality health care, provided with compassion and dignity, has been the operating principle of Venice Family Clinic since its inception," Lorre said in a statement. "For that reason, I am honored to play a part in the renovation efforts for the iconic Rose Avenue site, and confident that the Clinic will continue to be an oasis of hope for generations to come."

Venice Family Clinic recently introduced a fundraising initiative called “The Power of Us” to demonstrate the collective contributions of funders to help advance greater health equity. Gifts to the initiative, such as the Chuck Lorre Family Foundation’s, will fund the clinic’s innovative programs and services in its newly expanded service area with a focus on addressing solutions in six areas: achieving health equity, building mental health access, controlling pandemics and epidemics, defeating homelessness, ending hunger and fighting for our children.

Visit the website to learn more about the Power of Us initiative.

This article originally appeared on the Venice-Mar Vista Patch