The Remarkable Story of Covenant Community Care in Detroit
By Rev. Richard Dalton — creator of LookUpDetroit.com and JesusQuestion.com
Sometimes a significant ministry begins not with a strategic plan, a large building or a major grant.
Sometimes it begins with a conversation after church.
In 1999, Dr. Kathy Kleinert, a physician attending Messiah Church in Southwest Detroit, approached her pastor, Rev. Bob Hoey. She was increasingly concerned about people in the surrounding community who lacked health insurance and access to basic medical care.
Kleinert was already making house calls and sometimes treating people outside a conventional medical setting. After talking with Pastor Hoey, she made a remarkably simple commitment:
She would treat people who needed medical care, regardless of whether they could afford to pay.
That conversation became part of the beginning of Covenant Community Care, which would eventually grow into a substantial Christian community healthcare ministry serving Detroit.
A Promise Becomes a Ministry
Others soon joined the vision.
In January 2000, Covenant’s first board of directors was formed. In 2001, the organization received its nonprofit designation and operated as a free health clinic.
Then, in 2003, Covenant obtained its first building on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit.
And two years later something particularly important happened:
Covenant added dental care.
During those early years, the organization sometimes struggled financially. Healthcare professionals and administrative volunteers helped keep the doors open while Covenant continued caring for people in the neighborhood.
In 2007, another major change occurred. Covenant became a Federally Qualified Health Center, opening access to federal Health Resources and Services Administration funding and allowing the organization to expand its work significantly.
What began with one doctor’s promise had become an institution.
But the promise was still there.
“I Was Sick and You Cared for Me”
Covenant today offers primary medical care, pediatrics, women’s health, counseling, substance-use treatment and extensive dental services.
But there is something unusual about the way Covenant describes all of that work.
On its website, alongside the list of healthcare services, appears a sentence from Jesus:
“I was sick and you cared for me.” — Matthew 25:36
Covenant describes its mission in explicitly Christian terms while providing healthcare to people regardless of their ability to pay.
Pastor Hoey once described the philosophy another way:
“We try to treat each client as if they are Christ.”
That statement was recorded in a 2013 Christianity Today profile of Covenant and captures something important about the organization’s beginnings.
This wasn’t merely healthcare delivered by Christians.
It was healthcare understood as an expression of Christian service.
Then They Took the Dentist to the Patient
Of all Covenant’s programs, its Mobile Dental Program particularly caught my attention.
There are many charitable programs that provide dental screenings.
Covenant goes considerably further.
Its mobile dental teams include dentists, licensed dental hygienists and dental assistants who take the necessary equipment and supplies directly into schools and community organizations.
They provide comprehensive dental examinations, digital X-rays, professional cleanings, fluoride treatments, sealants and oral-health education.
At approved locations, the teams can even provide restorative treatment, including fillings and extractions.
Think about the difference that makes.
Instead of examining a child and handing the family a piece of paper saying,
“You need to see a dentist,”
Covenant can bring the dentist to the child.
Dentistry in Detroit Schools
The scale of the program is impressive.
Covenant currently reports providing mobile dental care at 90 Head Start locations, 18 Detroit Public Schools Community District schools and three additional schools, as well as school fairs, community health fairs and low-income housing locations.
The program also works with community organizations serving vulnerable populations, including Covenant House, Capuchin Kitchen, The Salvation Army, Eastside Community Network, Pope Francis Center and The NOAH Project.
And there is another important feature:
There is no out-of-pocket cost for Covenant’s mobile dental services.
When patients have dental insurance, including Medicaid, Covenant bills the insurance. For patients without dental coverage, Covenant says the services are provided free of charge.
For someone struggling financially, transportation may be difficult. Taking time away from work may be difficult. Finding a dentist who will accept the patient may be difficult.
Covenant’s approach attempts to remove several of those barriers at once.
Bring the care to the person who needs it.
From Cleanings to Root Canals
Covenant’s dental ministry isn’t limited to its mobile teams.
Its permanent Detroit dental clinics now provide an extensive range of treatment, including examinations, X-rays, cleanings, fillings, sealants, root canals, extractions, crowns, fluoride treatments, deep cleanings, dentures and partial dentures.
Children’s dental care is provided as well.
Covenant also hosts oral-surgery residents, allowing it to provide selected oral-surgery services while helping train future dental professionals.
Dental clinics currently operate at Covenant’s Michigan Avenue, Moross Road and Joy Road locations in Detroit.
When someone receiving mobile dental care needs additional treatment, that patient can be connected to one of these full-service clinics. Covenant says qualifying patients may even receive transportation assistance through Lyft for follow-up appointments.
It creates something much more substantial than an occasional dental outreach.
It creates a pathway into continuing care.
More Than 25 Years Later
There is something about the Covenant story that I find especially encouraging.
Organizations change as they grow.
A handful of people become a staff. A volunteer effort becomes a professional organization. Buildings are purchased. Government funding becomes involved. Regulations increase. Budgets grow.
And sometimes the original vision becomes difficult to recognize.
Yet more than two decades after Covenant began, the Christian Community Health Fellowship visited the organization in 2021 and reported something striking.
They described morning prayer with patients and staff at Covenant’s Michigan Avenue facility. They also met with Pastor Bob Hoey, whom Covenant still identified as one of its original founders.
The little ministry that started with a conversation after church had become a professional healthcare organization.
But people were still praying.
And people were still being cared for.
It Started With a Question
Perhaps that is the part of this story worth remembering.
Dr. Kathy Kleinert noticed people who needed medical care.
She talked with Pastor Bob Hoey.
Instead of beginning by asking whether they had enough money, enough employees, enough facilities or enough resources to solve Detroit’s healthcare problems, they began with the person standing in front of them.
What can we do?
One doctor said she would care for people who couldn’t afford care.
Others joined her.
A board formed.
A free clinic opened.
A building followed.
Dental care was added.
Federal health-center status came later.
More facilities opened.
And eventually dentists began carrying their equipment into Detroit schools and community organizations so that people who might never get to the dentist could have the dentist come to them.
More than 25 years after that first conversation, Covenant Community Care offers us a wonderfully uncomplicated picture of service:
See a need.
Care for a person.
Invite others to help.
And keep going.
Sometimes that is how a ministry begins.
And sometimes, years later, you discover that one simple act of faithfulness has become something much larger than anyone could have imagined.
Learn more about Covenant Community Care:
Covenant Community Care
Learn about the Mobile Dental Program:
Covenant Mobile Dental Program
