Sheridan Health Center offers housing and healthcare to Macon’s homeless population

The center, which has 12 beds, offers dental, physical, and mental health services to homeless people as they leave Piedmont Macon Hospital.

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Macon-Bibb County is taking another step to assist those in the area who are without homes.

The Sheridan Center and Respite Care Facility is now open on Walnut Street near downtown. The center, which has 12 beds, offers dental, physical, and mental health services to homeless people as they leave Piedmont Hospital. Sheridan Health Center Director Sister Theresa Sullivan says the clinic aims to help attendees recover and prevent whatever they went through from happening again.

“It is so many parts together that keep people healthy,” Sullivan said. “So, on one end you need the medical. We all know that until you have shelter, until you have food, those are the first lines of healing. And so, this beautiful 12-bed respite will be a place where people can come and have a roof over their head, and have it not too hot or not too cold.”

Sullivan says residents of the Sheridan Health Center are connected with case managers to seek long-term solutions for needs such as housing, medical care and access to food without having to rely on supplemental security income.

“A lot of times we have people on a walker just waiting until they turn old enough to get SSI,” Sullivan said. “That should not be.”

Piedmont Macon Medical Center CEO Steve Daugherty says the Sheridan Health Center will go a long way in helping Piedmont’s most vulnerable patients on their road to recovery.

“People that don’t have a place to go after they’re discharged from the hospital, that last bit of recovery from a health issue,” Daugherty said. “This provides a safe, secure environment for those people to receive that care.”

As for Sullivan, she’s in is her eighth and final year serving as the Director of Daybreak Depaul U.S.A. She says she’s proud to wrap up her time as an advocate for the homeless population in Macon with the opening of the Sheridan Health Center and she hopes the community keeps up the good work.

“It was the people of Macon that have supported us and brought us to this point,” Sullivan said. “And I know you will support this long after I’m gone. Thank you.”