Dearborn Nonprofit LAHC Opens $3 Million Hub Merging Mental Health Care and Job Training Under One Roof
A Dearborn nonprofit with roots in the city's Lebanese American community has opened a $3 million facility designed to treat mental health struggles, unemployment and language barriers as connected problems rather than separate ones.
LAHC — Leaders Advancing and Helping Communities, the organization formerly known as the Lebanese American Heritage Club — cut the ribbon on a new 6,500-square-foot addition to its headquarters on Kenilworth Street in East Dearborn last week, after nine months of construction. Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud joined LAHC President and CEO Wassim Mahfouz and other local officials at the opening.
The new center combines behavioral health care, English-language and digital-skills classes, career counseling and job-placement support in a single location. It also houses a partnership with Dearborn Public Schools that places the district's special education program on-site, and it will serve people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and autism spectrum disorder.
The expansion responds to fast-growing demand. LAHC says it served more than 80,000 people across its programs in 2025 — up from roughly 56,000 in 2023 — including 5,570 people who received mental and behavioral health services and thousands more in education and workforce programs. Once fully operational, the organization expects the new hub to reach about 20,000 additional people a year.
"We wanted to create one welcoming place where a person can take care of their mental health, build their skills, prepare for employment and access other resources that can help their family become more stable and self-sufficient," Mahfouz said. "Life does not happen in separate silos, so our services should not operate in separate silos either."
The project was funded through a mix of government, corporate and private support, including grants from Comcast and Amazon, according to Detroit ABC affiliate WXYZ. LAHC has also expanded its clinical team with licensed social workers and certified recreational therapists, and now accepts several Medicaid plans for eligible behavioral health services — a step Mahfouz said helps make care sustainable without relying on a single funding source.
The timing is notable: a citywide health assessment released by the City of Dearborn in July 2025 found that nearly one in five residents reported experiencing poor mental health for 14 or more days a month, with roughly two-thirds citing social stigma as a major barrier to getting help. Organization leaders say a facility staffed by people who understand clients' language, culture and family dynamics can make that first step easier.
LAHC operates alongside ACCESS, Dearborn's other major Arab American social service network, which recently named a new CEO after a 35-year leadership transition. Together, the two organizations form much of the social service infrastructure serving Metro Detroit's Arab American community, which has grown substantially over the past two decades.
At the ribbon-cutting, Hammoud framed the expansion in terms of economic mobility. "Whenever you help people get into the workforce, you're helping shatter the cycle of poverty, which often is passed down generation to generation," he said, according to WXYZ's report. James White, president and CEO of the Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network, also attended and praised the organization's inclusive approach to serving clients regardless of background.
Mahfouz said the center is already welcoming clients, with the goal, in his words, of creating "a place where people can walk through one door and find multiple pathways to opportunity, stability and hope."