NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — A New Haven health care center is about to start a major expansion. Fair Haven Community Health just received $3 million in federal funding. That will let it break ground on a brand new building.

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-3rd District) presented a big check to the leaders of Fair Haven Community Health Care. Its first building was a former corner grocery store. Then, it bought three Victorian houses on Grand Avenue and stitched them together. Those houses were built in the 19th century and are still home to the health center today.

“While this space has served us well and served the community well for many decades, the truth is that it’s no longer able to provide 21st century care to the residents of Fair Haven,” said Fair Haven Community Health Care CEO Dr. Suzanne P. Lagarde.

Many of those residents would do without health care if it were not for this center.

“They’re not afraid to enter this facility and know how they were going to be treated and that they are going to be able to get the best care,” said Congresswoman DeLauro.

Delauro secured that big check to help knock down the building next door and use that space and its parking lot as the site of a new, 33,000 square foot health center with exam rooms, a lab, pharmacy, and meeting space.

“It’s really impossible for me to overstate the importance of this organization to the Fair Haven community, and every improvement that is made here is an improvement for all of us,” said Alder Sarah Miller (D-New Haven, Ward 14).

The plan is to break ground this summer on something that will improve the health of all of Fair Haven for decades to come.

And will put a real dent in the chronic diseases that cause so much suffering and death in this community: Diabetes, hypertension, asthma, and so on,” explained Dr. Lagarde.

They hope to have the new building open in less than two years, in January of 2025. Once it is up and running, and they can move some operations into it, they will turn their attention to the old building, updating and modernizing it. Then it will all be a new, 21st century health care campus.