Free Mental Health And Wellness Center Opens In Prospect Lefferts

PROSPECT-LEFFERTS GARDENS, BROOKLYN — Have the last few years beaten you down? Are you in a pattern that you can't break? Have you always wanted help with mental or emotional struggles but could never afford it?

If you've been alive the last few years, one of those statements surely applies to you.

And starting this weekend, a new center at BKLYN Commons —located in the old Bond Bakery building at 495 Flatbush ave — called ARA Wellness Space, will provide central Brooklyn with its first community wellness space.

On Saturday Oct. 8, ARA is celebrating its opening at BKLYN Commons with a ribbon cutting at 4:45 p.m., where the public is invited to celebrate with drinks and treats.

The best treat, according to founder Nicholson Sony Pierre, is that for the most part, all of the services offered are free.

"Our main goal is to have a space where people can go and not feel ashamed of some of the issues that they're dealing with," Pierre said.

Many of the spaces that used to offer community mental health services — like AA meetings and support groups — are less common now, Pierre said, and is a big problem in disadvantaged communities.

"We wanted to kind of re-create those spaces," he said.

In addition to offering space for AA and other support groups, they also plan to host groups focused on parenting and gang interventions in addition to more traditional one-on-one counseling and therapists who will also operate out of the space.

Pierre says that most services are free for anybody who needs them.

Pierre has over 20 years of working with mental hygiene as a pastor and counselor, has worked closely with many NYC agencies and health organizations and received a NYPD Community Leadership Award in 2016. He also runs two ARA other wellness spaces across the city.

"This space is more than what I would call a counseling space," Pierre said, "it's kind of like the WeWork of therapy."