Community First Solutions
520 Eaton Avenue, Hamilton
(513) 785-4060
Four divisions:
Community Behavioral Health Inc.
Services: Psychiatric and mental health services; secure residential facility for Butler County residents with severe mental disorders (Great Miami Services); outpatient chemical dependency services for adults and adolescents (Horizon Services); drug court; case management; at-home services; children services; and apartment management throughout Butler County for clients with mental health diagnoses who can live independently
Locations: Community Behavioral Health Hamilton, 820 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.; Community Behavioral Health Middletown, 1659 S. Breiel Blvd.; Great Miami Services, Fort Hamilton Hospital, 2 East Annex, 630 Eaton Ave.
Colonial
Services: Senior retirement living; short term stay rehabilitation; Colonial schools; home care services; health screenings; wellness centers; restaurant; and catering.
Locations: Berkeley Square, 100 Berkeley Drive, Hamilton; Coach House Tavern & Grille, 120 Berkeley Drive, Hamilton; Westover Home, 855 Stahlheber Road, Hamilton; Colonial At Home, 1501 Millville Ave., Hamilton
Community First Pharmacy
Services: Nonprofit pharmacy
Average scripts a day: 436
Locations: 210 S. 2nd St. # 3, Hamilton
Partners in Prime
Services: Senior centers; Meals on Wheels; in-home services; and transportation
Locations: Prime Club Hamilton, 140 Ross Ave.; Prime Club Fairfield, 5108 Sandy Lane; Prime Club West Chester, 7900 Cox Road
SOURCE: Community First Solutions
The fast-paced growth of Community First Solutions has moved the nonprofit up the ranks to be one of Hamilton’s largest employers and one of the county’s largest nonprofit organizations.
Community First’s 650 employees is behind only Butler County and city government, Hamilton City Schools and Fort Hamilton Hospital, according to the Hamilton economic development department’s records.
In a time other nonprofits are seeing their funding sources run dry, Community First’s growing volume helps it gain efficiencies for accounting, marketing, payroll and construction, and capture multiple sources of revenues, said Chief Executive Officer and President Jeff Thurman. In July, the senior center Partners in Prime merged with Community First, becoming its fourth subsidiary joining Colonial’s retirement living communities, Community Behavioral Health and Community First Pharmacy.
“Because we have a larger scope of clients, we therefore can have a larger scope of potential revenue to drive the mission,” Thurman said.
Services provided by Community First affect approximately 40,000 people in Butler, Hamilton, Montgomery and Warren counties. It’s now the largest single provider of Meals on Wheels in Butler County, delivering about 800 home meals a day. With the exception of hospitals, it’s one of Butler County’s largest nonprofit organizations by employment and has an annual budget of $43 million.
As a result, Community First is outgrowing its administrative offices at 520 Eaton Ave.
But Thurman makes clear that Community First is not in the business of gobbling up smaller nonprofit organizations in Butler County. Nor is it the white knight of failing nonprofits, he said. Community First is on the hunt for more services to add to its portfolio, but like any business-minded strategy, the move has to complement the existing service offerings, he said.
The thing that connects retirement communities, mental health services, a pharmacy and senior centers is wellness, or quality of life, he said.
“I’m looking for other nonprofits that get it, that collaboratively we can have a bigger impact,” he said.
Community First has been growing at an accelerated rate in recent years.
Colonial and Community Behavioral became businesses under the same parent company in 1998.
The nonprofit pharmacy opened in 2008.
Primary Health Solutions, which operates health centers that provide services for a price based on income, partners with Community First Pharmacy, sharing the same building on 2nd Street.
“Our patients can go to Community First and fill their prescriptions at a reduced price. Many of the self-paid patients come to the doctor and get a prescription they can’t afford. It allows them to get the medications that they need,” said Marc Bellisario, president and CEO of Primary Health.
Then Community Behavioral acquired Comprehensive Counseling Service of Middletown in 2009.
In 2010, Colonial completed a $670,000 renovation for a new assisted living wing.
The parent company name changed to Community First Solutions at the start of 2011 — it was previously named Fort Hamilton Healthcare Corp.
Colonial at Home, which offers home care services, started in 2011 and is Community First’s fastest growing division. It opened an office on Millville Avenue in Hamilton last year.
This year saw the completion of the $3 million Donna Y. Carruthers Manor House at Berkeley Square, one of Colonial’s communities. The pharmacy was renovated and expanded, a project finished in June for $64,000. Community Behavioral Middletown added a fifth condominium. A $1.2 million project to build a wellness center at Berkeley Square is planned to open before the end of the year.
The addition of Partners in Prime gives President Steve Schnabl a chance to focus more on planning than on daily events, Schnabl said.
“That helps reduce our cost of operation and leaves more resources that are available to use in service delivery to older adults. It also means when there is a problem with an air conditioning system or with a person who becomes quite ill and can’t come to work, we’ve got a bigger pool to turn to,” Schnabl said. “Given the fact that there are so many seniors in the pipeline, with baby boomers, it just made sense.”
Besides acquiring other nonprofits, Community First has grown because a big chunk of its customers and people it serves are elderly people, one of the fastest growing populations and a population expected to keep growing as more baby boomers reach retirement age. Another segment of people served are a growing group of low-income people in need.
“It’s good for Butler County seniors and its good for nonprofit organizations who, when they collaborate like this, can gain economies of scale,” said Laurie Petrie, spokeswoman for Council on Aging of Southwestern Ohio, which administers the Butler County Elderly Services, PASSPORT and assisted living waiver programs. Council on Aging has multiple contracts with Colonial. “There’s greater and greater need and resources aren’t expanding at that level,” Petrie added.
The recent growth also has some to do with the separation from Fort Hamilton Hospital. Before Fort Hamilton joined Kettering Health Network in July 2010, it was part of the financially struggling Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati. Fort Hamilton Healthcare Corp. was a holding company that shared a board of directors with the hospital.
A new hospital board was put in place by Kettering Health, and Community First now has its own board of directors focused solely on setting goals and planning for Community First, Thurman said.
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