The Montrose Center

The Montrose Center was founded in 1978 as Montrose Counseling Center to address the gap in accessible and affirming mental health services for gay men and lesbians. The Center was one of the first to respond to the emergence of HIV and AIDS in the 1980s and continues to provide HIV counseling, case management, housing, and emergency financial assistance to those living with HIV. Our mission is to empower our community—primarily lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals and their families—to live healthier, more fulfilling lives.

Over the years, we have expanded beyond counseling and therapy to include other services such as intensive outpatient treatment for alcohol and substance use recovery, violence survivor services regarding domestic violence, sexual assault, hate crimes and human trafficking, HIV/STI community health screenings, education and outreach, women’s programing, veterans services, disaster relief, social support programs designed specifically to meet the needs of youth, seniors, and much more. Our LGBT Switchboard 24-hour help line is also accessible 24-hours a day for crisis intervention, peer phone counseling, and information/referral.

The Center regularly provides health education and disease prevention outreach to more than 40,000 individuals each year, and offers training to schools, corporations and healthcare professionals on these topics as well as general LGBTQ+ diversity issues.

Over the last 40+ years, the Montrose Center has become Houston's hub for the LGBTQ+ community, regularly organizing events and programing on our first floor community center. With everything from free wellness and educational classes, to meetings and events hosted by dozens of other social, civic and nonprofit groups, there is something for literally everyone happening at the Center nearly every day.

The Center is an affiliated agency of United Way of Greater Houston and accredited by The Joint Commission in behavioral health. It became the first Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) in Texas in 2016 and remains the only CCBHC in the nation with a focus on LGBTQ+ individuals and people living with HIV.