The services and campuses of Lee Mental Health have been evolving since 1969 when the original organization, Lee Mental Health Guidance Clinic, received its charter.

The clinic was the vision of a group of concerned Lee County citizens and the Lee Mental Health Association headed by Max Rieves, Vice President of Edison College. In 1970, the clinic opened in a vacant storefront at 1812 Jackson Street in Fort Myers with a staff of three: Dr. Norman Berk, a part-time psychologist who served as acting director, a sectretary and a part-time social worker.

As the clinic grew, Dr. Berk recruited Dr. Ruth Cooper, whose goal was to build a mental health system that would serve Lee County. When Dr. Berk retired, the Clinic Board asked Dr. Cooper to take over as Executive Director of the organization. A generous donor loaned the center two facilities on what is now the Bell Tower, imposing the restriction that the land be fenced so that children from the clinic wouldn’t scare the cows grazing nearby.

To meet the mental health needs of Lee County’s children and families, Dr. Cooper and the clinic staff planned an expanded, centralized facility on Ortiz Avenue. In a stroke of creative financing, the clinic found itself eligible for and obtained a low-cost loan from the federal government, thereby becoming the first mental health center in the country to be funded by the U.S. Farmers Home Administration, or FHA. The Ortiz Campus opened in 1980.