09/10/25

RBC Grantee Spotlight: IFM Community Medicine

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With a $5,000 Reinvention by Community (RBC) grant, IFM Community Medicine is expanding its ability to bring primary care directly to unhoused and housing-insecure youth across St. Louis. Through on-site clinics in trusted community spaces—including shelters, schools, and youth centers—IFM removes barriers like cost, transportation, and mistrust in healthcare systems. In 2024 alone, IFM served more than 5,100 unique patients across its network, delivering not only medical care but also addressing social determinants of health such as housing, food insecurity, and mental health support. This grant strengthens IFM’s ability to meet youth where they are, improve their immediate health, and build long-term health equity in communities that need it most.

Breaking Barriers to Care

For many unhoused or housing-insecure youth, navigating traditional healthcare systems is nearly impossible. Lack of transportation, lack of insurance, and fear of judgment can keep them from getting the care they need. IFM’s model flips that reality by bringing healthcare to the places where youth already feel safe—like Covenant House for unhoused youth, Almost Home for young mothers and infants, and the Epworth Drop-In Center, where unhoused youth can get free health screenings.

“We provide a nurse practitioner who is here on site at the Epworth Drop-in Center two half days a week,” said IFM CEO Dr. Denise Buck. “By having this site here, we’re able to get those services right to the children where it’s needed in an environment that they’re already comfortable in.”

At the Epworth Center clinic alone, IFM has served 1,429 patients since the clinic’s opening in 2015, including 181 in the last year. Many of these patients face overlapping risk factors like housing insecurity, justice involvement, substance use, or chronic absenteeism.

The RBC grant is helping IFM continue and enhance this work—funding clinical hours, vaccines, and on-site testing for services like sports physicals, school immunizations, and STD screening. These seemingly small interventions can be life-changing.

“We have youth that wouldn’t be able to go to school if it wasn’t for them providing the immunizations,” said Epworth’s Lead Street Outreach Worker Jenn Deaton. “We wouldn’t have youth being able to do sports if it wasn’t for IFM doing the sports physicals.”

Beyond the Exam Room

Central to IFM’s success is relationship-based care. Nurse practitioners, physicians, and community health workers not only address immediate medical concerns like vaccinations, chronic disease management, and urgent illnesses—they also check in on each patient’s social and emotional well-being.

These wraparound services are essential for unhoused youth, who often face compounding challenges. According to a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, when medical care is paired with social support, health outcomes improve, and patients are more likely to follow through with treatment plans.

If kids are struggling with health, they’re not going to be in school, they’re not going to be learning, they’re not going to be able to further themselves in life. So health is a very important building block for that.

Dr. Denise Buck., CEO of IFM

For many youth, IFM’s staff are more than medical providers—they are a source of stability and care. “The partnership is amazing,” said Deaton. “They’re more like family; the kids really like the nurse practitioners that come in. In fact, they get excited whenever they come in. They just want to go get their height and weight checked just so they can spend a couple of minutes with the nurse practitioners.”

By funding direct access to this trusted care, the RBC grant is helping IFM strengthen the health—and futures—of youth who might otherwise go unseen by the medical system. “By going to where they already are, it puts us in a really unique position to try to help,” Dr. Buck said.

IFM Community Medicine’s work demonstrates the power of meeting people where they are. You can help sustain and expand this vital work by supporting IFM’s mission to bring compassionate, comprehensive care to youth who need it most. Learn more or make a donation on IFM’s website.

Follow us on LinkedIn for more updates on the 2025 RBC grantees and the impact they’re making in classrooms, shelters, and communities across St. Louis.

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