Alliance Healthcare Services (AHS) one of the largest behavioral health providers in Shelby County, Tennessee, delivers comprehensive mental health and substance abuse services to vulnerable populations. For over 40 years the non-profit has worked to reduce emergency room utilization, divert individuals from incarceration, and improve access to immediate behavioral health care. AHS operates 7 facilities throughout Shelby County serving more than 22,000 individuals annually.

Hope Economic Corporation has provided AHS with a $10MM New Markets Tax Credit investment to support the construction of AHS’s new Children's Crisis Center. Located in the Binghampton neighborhood of Memphis, a deeply distressed community with poverty rates above 50% and unemployment rates north of 20%, the $12.5 million, 10,000 sq. ft. facility is the only center of its kind in the region dedicated to low-income and underinsured children and youth experiencing acute mental health crises. The Children's Crisis Center features 15 assessment rooms, a 6,000 sq. ft. Crisis Stabilization Unit for short-term stabilization, and a 4,000 sq. ft. 23-Hour Observation Wing.

Constructed alongside a newly completed $34 million Adult Crisis Center on the same property, the Children's and Adult Crisis Centers offer a coordinated continuum of care for individuals of all ages experiencing behavioral health crises. Together, these facilities will deliver crisis intervention, crisis stabilization, medically monitored withdrawal management, respite care, mobile crisis services, police and EMS diversion programs, and pre-arrest diversion programming in a community where current wait times for mental health services at the nearest hospital exceed 15 days.

Services Provided by Classic Lake:

• New Markets Tax Credit CDE Advisory

Community and Economic Impacts

• Serves 8,165 individuals annually (including 2,500 children and youth)

• Creates 63 new permanent full-time jobs

• Retains 81 permanent full-time jobs