When the Rite Aid store at the intersection of Crenshaw Boulevard and West Slauson Avenue closed its doors in March 2024, the loss of the pharmacy was a blow to the surrounding South Los Angeles community. The store’s exit exacerbated the neighborhood’s shortage of pharmacies within a reasonable walking and driving distance, marking the area as a “pharmacy desert.”
On Thursday morning, in an adjacent storefront, USC and community leaders celebrated the launch of the USC Pharmacy and Wellness Center, aimed at closing gaps in health care. The pharmacy, slated to open to the public in April, will be operated by the USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in tandem with a clinic run by T.H.E. (To Help Everyone) Health and Wellness Centers, creating a coordinated hub for community-based care.
“This is more than a storefront,” Vassilios Papadopoulos, dean of USC Mann, said in his opening remarks at the ribbon-cutting event. “It is a statement. It is a statement that health access matters, that community partnership matters, that pharmacy is central for the future of health care.”