Eden Garcia-Balis of Airport Marina Counseling Service. (Chris Mortenson/Staff)
By Christina Fuoco-Karasinski
Eden Garcia-Balis firmly believes everybody deserves quality mental health care, regardless of socio-economic status.
After working as a case manager, she wanted to do more, so she decided she needed to earn her master’s degree in counseling.
“I’ve always been drawn to community mental health,” she said. “I earned my license and opened my own office. But I decided that I would be really making more of a difference if I ran a whole clinic.”
Since 2014, Garcia-Balis has served as chief executive officer for Airport Marina Counseling Service in Los Angeles. Previously, the licensed marriage and family therapist served as Pasadena Mental Health Center’s executive director.
“Airport Marina Counseling Service’s mission is right up my alley — which is to provide accessible, community-based mental health services, and to provide quality training to therapists.”
She called it her “dream job.” She doesn’t see herself working anywhere else.
“I love it,” she explained. “Every day is different. One day I’ll write a grant; another day I’ll be doing a presentation in the community; another day I’ll be with our clinical director writing policies and procedures on something specific for the clinic.
“There’s never a dull moment.”
Eden Garcia-Balis says services at Airport Marina Counseling Service are on a sliding scale. (Chris Mortenson/Staff)
Airport Marina Counseling Service celebrates the community with the 21st annual “Spring into Well-Being” at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 22, at the Renaissance Los Angeles Airport Hotel. The organization will honor the 2025 Champions of Mental Health, Mark Skjervem and Janie Guthrie Skjervem, and the 2025 Community Builder, Sylvia Wilson. Fritz Coleman will serve as emcee. “Spring into Well-Being” — which includes a hosted reception and dinner — is set to raise more than $350,000.
“The clinic doesn’t have any contracts with the Department of Public Health, or the Department of Mental Health, or the state,” said Garcia-Balis, who is married with two sons. “All of our funding is through client fees, donations and grants. This celebration brings in about a quarter of our income.
“Even though it’s a nonprofit, it’s still a business and it needs to be sustainable. We need to always look at the bottom line and how we can increase revenue.”
Increased revenue means more programming, Garcia-Balis added.
The clinic’s strong suit is reducing barriers to treatment accessibility. One way of doing so is offering telehealth appointments to anyone in California — even those who are homebound due to a physical or mental illness. Services are on a sliding scale depending on gross income.
Airport Marina Counseling Service is open seven days a week: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Besides individual therapy, Airport Marina Counseling Service offers group therapy and even psychiatry. After the fires, the community asked for a grief and loss group.
“We’ve created project impact,” she said. “We don’t have any funding, but because we were able to just redirect some of our unrestricted funding, we can provide free therapy to those directly or indirectly impacted by the fires. We’re providing free sessions and group sessions. It’s all about the community.”
Airport Marina Counseling Service
7891 La Tijera Boulevard, LA
310-670-1410
amchelps.com
info@amchelps.com
“Spring into Well-Being”
WHEN: 5:30 p.m. Thursday, May 22
WHERE: Renaissance Los Angeles Airport Hotel, 9620 Airport Boulevard, Los Angeles
COST: Sponsorships start at $1,000
INFO: amchelps.com
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