Healthier Together: Tubman Center for Health & Freedom focuses on health needs of underserved communities

The Tubman Center for Health & Freedom was founded by six Black and Indigenous community members to create a new health care system meeting the needs of communities of color and other marginalized communities in the Puget Sound region. The organization is planning an innovative community health center offering culturally appropriate care and integrative medicine.

Nacala Ayele, chair of the Tubman Center board of directors, said Tubman Health "was born out of a desire to see not just reform in health care, but a completely different health care system that centers on the needs of marginalized communities."

Tubman Health is building a clinic in Seattle designed to meet the needs of marginalized groups, as opposed to the current health care system that often pushes them away, said Francxs Placide, secretary of the Tubman Health board of directors.

"Health care, in general, has a lot of problems that need to be fixed for everyone, but when you look like me, from a community of color or a community that's been pushed to the margins, there are a lot of layers and barriers to push through in order to get good quality care," Placide said.

The misconceptions and biases are deep-seated in the system, Placide said. "Some students are taught that there's a difference between White and Black bodies, such as Black people don't feel pain as much as White people." These misconceptions contribute to a lack of adequate care and pain management for people of color, fostering a profound mistrust in the health care system.

Tubman Health’s mission is to "offer services in a way that is responsive to our cultures, affirming of our gender identity presentation, and that is delivered with love," Ayele said.

Tubman Health’s community health clinic is scheduled to open in 2026. The Cambia Health Foundation, the corporate foundation of Regence BlueShield, is one of the supporters of the new clinic.

"We just signed our purchase sale agreement for the land in Rainier Beach, planning to serve 8,000 community members through primary care and another 16,000 through community programming," Ayele said.

"We are doing something that is innovative, that is brave, that is different," Placide said. "Normally, when a health center is built, it's built, and then the people that it's supposed to serve are expected to fit into that health center. What we’re doing is going first to community understanding, community needs and wants. And then the health center is fitting into the community."