City expands homeless services with medical respite center
BY David Williams Kentucky, Spectrum News
PUBLISHED 5:00 PM ET Jun. 09, 2025
https://spectrumnews1.com/ky/louisville/news/2025/06/07/more-money-earmarked-to-help-people-experiencing-homeless-in-louisville
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Living on the streets is difficult for 56-year-old James. Five years ago, he fell on hard times and lost his job and his home.
What You Need To Know
Metro Louisville and Volunteers of America are building a Community Care Campus. The center is for homeless people recently released from the hospital, who still need medical care. Within the Community Care Campus will be a medical respite facility. “I mean, you don’t know where you’re going and you don’t know where you’re sleeping at night,” he told Spectrum News 1. To help people experiencing homelessness, 
Louisville Metro and Volunteers of America are building a Community Care Campus that’ll provide shelter, medical care, and other centralized services.
In April, Mayor Craig Greenberg, D-Louisville, announced additional money to build a medical respite facility on the campus. It’s for homeless people recently released from the hospital, who still need medical care.
Bart Irwin, CEO of the Family Health Centers, explained to Spectrum News, “We really want to provide a safe place for people to recover from illnesses and injuries where they don’t have to be on the streets. A safe environment so they can concentrate on getting better.”
Irwin said plans are being finalized. The building could be at least two-stories tall. Each floor would be about 5,000 square feet with adequate space to house about 30 people.
“I think we will save lives,” said Irwin. “Not only is it a benefit to the people who are using the respite program, but it’s also an advantage to the community as well. The hospitals get to discharge persons who would otherwise be languishing in hospital beds because they have nowhere to go.”
Family Health Centers currently has a respite program inside Hotel Louisville at Second and Broadway. According to Irwin, the mayor’s office initially earmarked $3 million for the respite project on the care campus. Irwin also said that the mayor’s budget proposal includes an additional $1 million to $3 million for respite care.
Irwin explained, “It is very encouraging that we can get this done. I know it’s a priority of Mayor Greenberg. So, it’ll be good to see it come to fruition.”When that happens, James believes it will help people in the community as he gets his life back on track.
The project manager said they hope to have shovels in the ground by the end of this year but we’re told that could change. Irwin said a meeting is scheduled in the coming weeks to finalize the location of the respite facility on the Community Care Campus. Irwin said they have ideas and have done some planning with Miranda Construction and Volunteers of America.