Fayette C.A.R.E. Clinic closing after 20 years, leaving vulnerable Fayetteville residents with fewer options

In a quiet corner of Fayetteville, a small clinic that has served some of the area's most vulnerable residents for more than two decades is preparing to close — a casualty of funding challenges that providers say are becoming more common across metro Atlanta.

The Fayette C.A.R.E. Clinic will shut its doors after years of relying on a patchwork of grants, fundraisers and donations — funding streams that Executive Director Geneva Weaver says became increasingly difficult to sustain.

"Money became more and more difficult to obtain," Weaver said. "We had a board of directors that had been doing this for 20-plus years, and they just got tired… tired of trying to recreate the wheel on how to bring those funds in."

The clinic treated more than 1,000 patients last year, many of whom had few, if any, other options. All the patients were required to prove lack of income and the absence of health insurance as a pre-qualification for care. For those patients, the clinic wasn't just a convenient place for care: it was often the only one.

Weaver said it was challenging to secure funding because of a perception that Fayetteville is an affluent community, and said other clinics, closer to Atlanta have fewer challenges.  She says that perception is wrong, regardless of geography.

"We're all seeing the same kind of patient," Weaver said when describing who relies on the clinic. "That is the person that's living 200% below the federal poverty level without insurance."

As the final days approach, staff are no longer seeing patients.  Instead, they're packing up equipment, closing out records and trying to help patients transition elsewhere.

For families like Laurie Breckenridge, the closure is deeply personal.

After nearly exhausting her own life savings, she turned to the clinic when her mother, Lynn, suffered a catastrophic illness after moving to Georgia and credits the staff with helping save her life.

"They had the opportunity to save her life the first time," Breckenridge said.  "She had a massive bleed-out event… and they intervened. They helped us get to specialists and everything."

Now, she worries about what comes next for others in the community.

"I think that the challenge will become more challenging," she said.

Patients are being referred to another clinic – The Healing Bridge Clinic in Peachtree City — roughly a 20 to 30-minute drive away.  But providers and families say distance is only part of the problem.

For patients without reliable transportation or the means to pay even a modest co-pay, that "alternative" may not be accessible at all.

The Fayette clinic's closure reflects a larger pattern playing out across parts of South Atlanta, where hospitals and urgent care centers have also shuttered in recent years, shrinking access to care in already underserved communities.

The impact is especially acute in Georgia, where a significant number of residents lack both insurance and a clear pathway to affordable care.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than a million Georgians are uninsured.  The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates roughly 400,000 fall into what's known as the "coverage gap" — earning too little to afford private insurance, but not qualifying for Medicaid.

For many patients served by clinics like Fayette C.A.R.E., that gap is not abstract.

It defines their options.

For Weaver, the closure is more than personal -- it's emotional.  "This is where my heart is," she said.

After years of service, she's watching the clinic come to an end.  And the patients she's cared for will move on, searching for care elsewhere.  And now, so will she.