LORAIN — Planned Parenthood and the YWCA have invested $60,000 in a downtown facility in an effort to meet the health needs of women.

The Women’s Center in Lorain opened its new location at 200 W. Ninth St. on Monday in a formerly unused part of the YWCA’s Residence for Women.

The building was purchased three years ago and was mostly converted to apartments for women living with mental illness and recovering from drug addiction, said Jeanine Donaldson, executive director of YWCA Lorain.

Now it’s also home to Planned Parenthood, the Bellefaire JCB mental health agency, Beech Brook children’s services provider and urban resource center Nueva Luz.

Planned Parenthood will provide testing for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, pap tests, breast exams and early cervical cancer diagnosis and treatment.

The center’s CEO Tara Broderick said the facility also will provide birth control, including condoms, and pregnancy counseling.

“We know that all too often, early parenting leads into a poverty cycle,” Broderick said.

Staff will give women referral lists of affordable prenatal care, adoption contacts and a list of abortion sites, she said.

The Women’s Center in Lorain will not perform abortions, she said, but Planned Parenthood has clinics in Bedford and Rocky River that perform the procedure.

There are no doctors in Lorain County — or between Rocky River and Toledo, for that matter — who perform abortions, Donaldson said.

Emergency contraception — the so-called “morning-after pill” — will also be made available.

The Women’s Center in Lorain is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday.

An open house will be noon to 5 p.m. Oct. 12.

“We want this health center to be embraced by all women in the community as a means of empowering their lives,” Donaldson said.

Contact Jason Hawk at 653-6264 or jhawk@chroniclet.com.  

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