Can This Wellness Center Help West Siders Live Longer? Sankofa Village Aims To Do Just That
WEST GARFIELD PARK — The latest effort to address the West Side’s life expectancy gap is now open: a center offering clinics, workforce development and recreational activities.
The Sankofa Village Wellness Center, 4305 W. Madison St., opened Thursday as the flagship component of the Sankofa Wellness Village along the Madison and Pulaski corridor, a development that won the 2023 Chicago Prize from the Pritzker Traubert Foundation.
The center aims to raise life expectancy for West Siders — who live, on average, 16 years fewer than people in other parts of Chicago — and combat longtime disinvestment in the area through resources in the center and beyond, officials said.
“This center was built for the residents and is designed to meet their needs while serving as a space where people can connect, grow and thrive,” said Drea Slaughter, Garfield Park Rite To Wellness executive director. “The resources offered here are just the beginning, and we look forward to continuing this work and building on our mission to strengthen opportunity and improve quality of life across West Garfield Park.”
The center features health clinics, fitness and recreational programs as well as workforce development opportunities. The three-floor, 60,000-square-foot facility houses tenants including the Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative, Rush Medical Center, Erie Family Health, West Side United, Equal Hope and the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago.
Services offered on-site include:
- Primary medical care and reproductive, behavioral and dental health services
- Substance abuse disorder treatment and health education programs
- Health screenings
- Mental health and disease prevention training programs
- Workforce development programs
- Group fitness programs and youth and teen sports programs
- Drop-in child care
- Indoor gymnasium and walking track
“Today, we are not just opening a wellness center. We are adding to the revitalization of West Garfield Park, the Madison-Pulaski corridor, and we are ensuring that residents have access to high-quality health care,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “We are working to ensure that all residents, no matter their ZIP code, can have access to the tools, resources and services needed to live healthy and prosperous lives.”
West Garfield Park residents live to an average age of 69, compared to 85 for people living in the Loop, according to a 2015 Virginia Commonwealth University report.
And a 2021 city study showed a racial life expectancy gap growing between Black and non-Black Chicagoans. Black people in Chicago live about nine fewer years than non-Black people as they struggle with higher death rates for diabetes-related issues, homicides, HIV and opioids, that report found.
Less than a mile away from the wellness center, the intersection of Pulaski Road and Lake Street near the Green Line station has been named “the epicenter of the fentanyl crisis” in Chicago by The West Side Heroin/Opioid Task Force, an outreach group based in the area. Last year, there were 15 opioid overdose deaths within a half-mile of the intersection, despite 2025 seeing 10-year lows in overdose deaths, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s dashboard mapping opioid-related cases. The greater West Side also sees a disproportionate number of opioid deaths.
Johnson and other leaders are confident the wellness center’s presence will help further address overdoses.
“There’s still a lot more work to be done, and what that requires in this moment is to do more, to double down on those investments,” Johnson told Block Club. It’s about “breaking the stigma around receiving care but also making sure that we’re not criminalizing addiction. … It’s not just educating but ensuring that those resources are available wherever these individuals are.”
Walking Through Sankofa
The building’s lobby has floor-to-ceiling windows adorned with the icon of a sankofa, the center’s namesake and the name of a symbol depicting a bird originating from the Akan people of Ghana.
The lobby’s extra-wide staircase doubles as coworking space. Underneath the staircase is a kiosk run by West Side United that functions to provide West Siders with jobs and job training opportunities.
The first floor also houses the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago’s fitness center, locker rooms and a wellness studio that has classes. The YMCA has an elevated walking trail and a basketball gym that span the second and third floors.
Child care is provided for visitors of the center by the YMCA.
The second floor houses offices for the Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative. The community organization is one of the minority owners of the center.
Rush University Medical Center also has a suite on the second floor dedicated to behavioral health that offers mental health counseling plus social support and wellness workshops on disease prevention for chronic conditions such as diabetes.
On the third floor, Erie Family Health Centers serves as the main primary care provider, with a suite that also includes dental and behavioral health clinics. Both health care providers are able to refer patients to each other, with Erie offering a “health care home” while Rush provides more acute or specialty services, according to a statement from Erie officials.
The complex also houses Equal Hope, whose space provides free breast and reproductive cancer screenings for uninsured and underinsured patients. The Sankofa Wellness Village also includes a Community Grocer Initiative to host pop-up markets that provide healthy and fresh food options while organizers work toward a permanent grocer.
The Sankofa Village Wellness Center began construction in fall 2024 and is spearheaded by the Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative, The Community Builders and MAAFA Redemption Project.
The center is one component of the Sankofa Wellness Village, which last year won the $10 million Chicago Prize from the Pritzker Traubert Foundation. The project cost is estimated at $48 million, according to center officials.
