OUR
HISTORY
Lvon-Martin was established in 1979 by Dr. Patty Robertson, Sherron Mills, NP, & Alana Schilling who aimed to improve access to affirming care for lesbians and queer women in San Francisco.
“The Women’s Alternative Health Service” was founded with Patty & Alana on the Board and Sherron as the first Executive Director. With their permission, the clinic was named after co-founders of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first known lesbian organization in the US, Phyllis Lyon & Del Martin, and after raising $500 at a benefit concert at the Women’s Building, Lyon-Martin Women’s Health Services opens at the San Francisco Public Center with the aim of providing affordable, nonjudgemental, comprehensive healthcare and health education for lesbians.
In 1980, facing an overwhelming demand, a permanent clinic is established on Fillmore St where Lyon-Martin began operating 5 days plus two evenings per week. In 1983, Lyon-Martin relocated to Mission St in the Los Portales Medical Building and several years later, it moved to 1748 Market St.
Lyon-Martin Health Services and the Women’s Community Clinic were two independently operated community clinics in San Francisco. However, in 2015 and 2017, respectively, both organizations merged with HealthRIGHT360. The clinics were then relocated from their sites to 1735 Mission St, combining staff and patients alike. Staff subsequently re-named the newly blended clinic as Lyon-Martin Community Health Services, melding the names of both.
When HealthRIGHT360 proposed to close the newly merged clinic just two years later in 2020 claiming the clinic was not financially viable, the staff, patients, city and broader community alike organized to support the separation and independence of the clinic, once again. Thus, Lyon-Martin Community Health Services, the now independent, Federally Qualified Health Center, as it exists today, was born out of a merger between Lyon-Martin Health Services and The Women’s Community Clinic and their subsequent separation as one entity from their parent organization HealthRIGHT 360 in March 2022. Since independence, Lyon-Martin has over doubled its budget and is projecting an abundant future.
The Women’s Community Clinic was founded in 1999, after the Women’s Needs Center was closed as the result of financial cutbacks by Haight Ashbury Free Clinics. Four months later, Jessica Wolin and a group of volunteers and clinicians reopened the clinic as an independent entity, The Women’s Community Clinic, at 2166 Hayes St., with the mission to improve the health and well-being of all women, by providing free health care for women by women in a safe, respectful environment. The clinic eventually moved to 1833 Fillmore St.
Del Martin, on preserving their legacy