First off: Could there be a better neighbor than the Family Health Center?

In North Waco, in South Waco, in East Waco, it is dedicated to the areas it serves and goes where the need is greatest.

Once known as the Family Practice Center, it is more than one center, in fact, and always looking to have a greater impact.

For more than a generation its focus has been medical care, serving the indigent and training physicians. In the past few years it has added dental care, a dire need in low-income areas.

Now: redevelopment in a hurting part of town?

That’s what Family Health is talking about as it looks at the potential for a vacant lot at North 18th Street and Colcord Avenue, property once occupied by Providence hospital.

The non-profit is hoping to ply federal stimulus dollars into a mixed-use complex that includes housing, shopping and dining.

The center owns the land, which it plans to donate as it applies for the federal dollars.

If it all comes to pass, it will be the result of collaboration. Several community organizations are lining up to contribute to the effort. This is how anything happens in an economically distressed area. You can’t simply expect big-ticket tenants to come swooping in and make everything better.

Then again, if you care about a neighborhood, you don’t just sit back and let it decay.

Important things have happened already at the site of the abandoned hospital.

The 54-unit Brook Oaks Senior Residences has added sparkle to what was just dirt and weeds.

Family Health Practice envisions a complex combining a health/dental clinic with various entities: condominiums and apartments, a health club, a food store and a niche restaurant.

This sounds a little audacious, but don’t underestimate what far-seeing agents for inner-city Waco can do. Look at what’s happened in the 25th Street corridor from Colcord to Waco Drive.

These strides were made possible in part because of collaboration and in part because assistance often is available for redeveloping blighted, “no-hope” parts of town.

This is the essence of stimulus spending that can make a big difference.

We are putting our money on the dreamers at Family Health, and hope that the federal government does, too.