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Long-running Twin Cities HIV and LGBTQ+ health center Rainbow Health announced Thursday that it’s closing immediately, citing financial challenges.

Rainbow Health offered mental health care and HIV services in downtown Minneapolis. In its announcement, the center said staff are working with other local organizations to make sure patients can get care elsewhere.

In a statement, the workers union — SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa — said the board informed staff of the closure Thursday, just hours before the shutdown.

“We are shocked, saddened and angered by this news, both as staff dedicated to Rainbow Health’s mission and even more so for our clients and community,” a group of workers wrote in the statement. “We are left with many huge questions.”

Unionized staff said their contract mandates a notice of 30 days before layoffs. Union organizers say they’re working to ensure the contract is enforced. 

Michele Peterson worked as a benefits counselor at Rainbow Health. She says staff have not been informed yet whether they’ll receive compensation for unused paid time off, or whether they will be paid for answering client questions following the closure.

She’s most worried about people who depend on the clinic’s programs — many of whom are already vulnerable.

“We have been forced to abandon our clients. We have no choice,” Peterson said. “They’re people who have had the rug pulled out underneath them.”

The union says members took a vote of no-confidence in the organization’s CEO, leading to his resignation just days ago. 

Peterson said the vote stemmed from a lack of financial transparency. She said workers were informed at previous staff meetings that the organization was struggling financially, but not warned that the situation was dire, or that a sudden closure was possible.

“There’s so many things that we have been left in the dark about,” Peterson said. 

Rainbow Health management staff did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Rainbow Health grew out of the Minnesota AIDS Project, which started in the 1980s. It began as a group of volunteers, who coordinated some of the state’s earliest prevention and awareness efforts in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

About 80 people worked at Rainbow Health. Staff say they haven’t gotten answers from the board about what will happen to clients, or why the closure was so sudden.

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Estelle Timar-Wilcox

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Long-running Twin Cities HIV and LGBTQ+ health center Rainbow Health announced Thursday that it’s suddenly closing, citing financial challenges. The union representing staff says the news came as a shock to workers.

Rainbow Health abruptly closes, shocking workers

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