From Abandoned Building to Health Care Network
By Aaricka Washington
May/Jun 25
Kathryn Windley, 74, remembers hearing about the UMMA Health Clinic right after the 1992 Los Angeles Uprisings. Her daughter said she saw some “well-dressed Muslims” by a nearby abandoned building where frequent drug use took place. Thinking they didn’t fit the picture, Windley drove over to figure out what was going on.
“In this neighborhood, two things stand out: white people and well-dressed Muslims,” Windley said. “I asked what was up, and they told me that they were planning to open a clinic in the area because we were underserved. I said, ‘Okay,’ and I told them, ‘You sure you want to put it here?’”
During a time when the South Central neighborhood of L.A. didn’t have many health services available for residents, UCLA students and Charles R. Drew University students teamed up to create the University Muslim Medical Association (UMMA), a free clinic funded by the two universities. In 1994, they progressed through the construction of a physical building and raised more than $1.3 million in investment capital. They opened their doors in 1996 and became an operational nonprofit the following year. Next year, in 2026, they will celebrate 30 years of operation.
Windley, her husband, and her family have been loyal patients at UMMA Health Clinic since the very beginning. She said the clinic has a place in her heart because it helped her family receive life-saving treatments; it helped her husband access medication for various health conditions, and it detected her granddaughter’s cervical cancer early enough for the condition to receive treatment. The clinic also helped Windley with her congestive heart failure.
“I’m still alive and my husband’s still alive, and my granddaughter is still alive,” she said.
Windley now serves the clinic as a board member and goes to UMMA once every three months for a physical exam and to renew her life-saving prescriptions.
UMMA: A Complete Health Care Network
What started off as a free clinic founded by medical students in a time of social unrest in South Central has transformed into a growing network of clinics that hosts school-based wellness centers, mobile health care facilities, and dental clinics. Last year alone, UMMA Health served 8,358 patients, a 14% increase from the previous year.
“It was really a partnership between many faith communities – not just the Muslim community – [and university students]. . . coming together and trying to address the health disparities in South L.A.,” Adel Syed, the CEO of UMMA Health said. Syed has been the UMMA CEO since 2018, but his career with UMMA Health started in 2013.
Syed said that the original location on 711 West Florence Avenue was donated by City Councilmember Rita Walters who helped them to procure the building. It was then turned into a community health center which allowed them to start receiving federal funding leading to more structure within the organization. The establishment of a board of directors also allowed them to expand clinical locations.
In 2013, they opened a second location at Fremont High School which included a one-acre community garden. The clinical center there serves the local high school students as well as the community as a whole by providing primary care, pediatric care, women’s health care, and dental care to its patients.
Syed said the clinic started off with one or two employees and has now grown to 125 health care professionals. The clinic also partners with over 10 educational institutions from medical schools to nursing schools to dental schools. They’re also training the next cohort of leaders in health care.
Syed noted that there used to be a preceptor physician who supervised the clinic when it was fully volunteer based. Now they have full-time physicians and nurse practitioners on staff. Preceptors are still present for students doing clinical rotations and undergraduates working on community-based projects.
Syed said the clinic’s success is due to the staff’s ability to focus on patient and community needs at a grassroots level no matter the service they provide.
“[UMMA staff] are really attuned to what the community needs,” Syed said.
He also said that the dedicated volunteers, full-time staff, and board members who served patients at various points of the organization’s growth have made a huge difference.
When asked about concerns or fears about a Muslim-centric health clinic in the current political climate with rhetoric and threats against people who practice Islam, Syed brought back the original purpose of the founding of UMMA: “to be of service to the entirety of humanity and to serve [patients].” He also mentioned that a significant majority of the patients and staff at UMMA are not Muslim, even though the health care network was founded as a faith-based organization.
“Most of our staff is not Muslim, but the ethos of who we are, and kind of our beginnings, was inspired by Islam which holds true to today,” Syed said. “Given the current climate and given communities and political leadership at all levels, what’s important is that the community is being served. If we focus on community needs, and we focus on our staff, our volunteers, and working with our dedicated board of directors, I think we can weather out any storm.”
According to the American Muslim Health Professionals, or AMHP, there are approximately 70 Muslim community-based health organizations in the U.S. in at least 22 states. In 2008, UMMA became the first Muslim American organization to be designated as a Federally Qualified Health Center.
According to the Pew Research Center, there are currently 3.45 million Muslims in the U.S., counting for about 1.1% of the total population of the nation. However, nearly 5% of American physicians are Muslim. But, while Muslims tend to be overrepresented in medicine, Muslim American physicians also face a “minority tax” which brings them uncompensated physical, emotional, and mental labor and discrimination in the field.
“There’s a large need [for] Muslim Americans who self-identify as Muslim American and would like to use their faith to propel them and to work in a health institution that is founded and inspired by faith values, just as there are Catholic Health Systems, Jewish Health Systems,” Syed said. “And those are obviously inspired by faith, but they’re in service of humanity, and UMMA health seeks to be that for the American Muslim community [while being] open and inclusive to all [to further] public good and health equity.”
The Future of UMMA Services in L.A.
Chief Strategy Officer Leigh Stenberg said that the clinic is currently focusing on expansion. One of their current efforts is a community program focused on food insecurity in partnership with Food Forward, an organization that takes excess food from farmers markets and distributes it to nonprofits throughout L.A. County.
“Pretty much every single one of our patients has food insecurity in some way, especially [when it comes to] access to fresh fruits and vegetables,” Stenberg said. “We knew that we wanted to give back.”
The clinic hosts a food drive every Wednesday. Last year, staff distributed just short of 500,000 pounds of food.
“[This is also a way] to make sure that community members are connected to health care. We can make sure that they’re getting the care that they need,” said Stenberg.
UMMA expects to open its first South Central L.A. urgent care and primary care center at the end of this year. It also plans to expand its coverage to San Bernardino by converting the Al Shifa clinic into an UMMA Health site.
“We want to be considered a health home for our patients,” Stenberg said. “We can provide everything under one roof.”
Aaricka Washington is as freelance reporter based in Los Angeles
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