Chatham has never had its own veterinary clinic — until now. Chatham Veterinary Clinic is set to welcome its first pet patients on Tuesday at 8200 S. King Drive, filling what its founder calls a long-standing void in care for South Side pets.
The clinic is the only veterinary practice in Chatham and will be among just a handful serving Chicago's South Side at all, according to Block Club Chicago. Its owner and veterinarian, Dr. Simuel Hampton, bought the building in February and completed his final workday at the Anti-Cruelty Society's downtown office in October, the outlet reported. Before launching his own practice, Hampton led the medical team at One Tail at a Time and worked in a leadership role at the Anti-Cruelty Society, and he has practiced veterinary medicine for 14 years.
Hampton told the outlet he noticed gaps in pet care services on the South Side, with far South Side families often traveling all the way to the Anti-Cruelty Society's downtown low-cost clinic just to get their animals seen. “As far as this immediate area, there's not much around,” he said. “It's definitely a big need.”
What the New Clinic Will Offer
Per Hampton, the clinic will offer dental cleanings, surgeries, spaying and neutering, vaccinations and other preventive services, primarily for dogs and cats, though he says he can also care for rabbits, goats and backyard poultry. The building contains three exam rooms — one sized for larger dogs and another built for cats, rabbits and smaller animals — along with a pharmacy stocked with pet medications. There's also a comfort room with a private exit, designed for pet owners grieving the loss of an animal.
The clinic's own website describes its planned offerings in more detail, listing annual wellness exams, vaccinations, parasite prevention, nutrition guidance and personalized care plans, alongside in-house laboratory testing and diagnostic tools. It also lists compassionate senior wellness care, chronic disease management, quality-of-life assessments, hospice support and end-of-life care among its planned services, and the site had described the opening as scheduled for Fall 2026.
Hampton said appointments are already scheduled for opening day. “My goal is to figure out the needs of the community and do the best I can to meet those needs,” he said, according to Block Club Chicago's report. He's also behind Guardian Mobile Veterinary Services, which he founded to offer house calls and pop-up wellness clinics for pet owners who lack transportation or access to a veterinarian. Looking ahead, Hampton said he plans to expand his team of three and hopes to eventually open more small-scale clinic locations across Chicago, particularly on the West and East sides.
A Citywide Shortage of Veterinary Care
Chatham's situation reflects a broader scarcity on the South Side. The nearest options, Woodlawn Animal Hospital and Auburn Animal Hospital, are both located in Auburn Gresham, not Chatham, per the same report. The gap matters more as pet surrenders and intakes climb: Chicago Animal Care and Control took in 17,788 animals in 2025, a 16.6 percent jump from the year before, and owners directly surrendered 5,734 of those animals, according to CBS Chicago. The station also reported that the pet-sitting app Rover found the cost of pet care rose 10 percent over the past year.
Research backs up what Hampton says he's seen firsthand. A 2022 study published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science found that distance to a clinic, veterinary-care costs and transportation all emerged as significant barriers to care, and that the share of cats going without veterinary care rose from 32 percent to 45 percent between 1998 and 2011. The same study noted that only 8 percent of veterinary clinics surveyed reported having staff who could speak Spanish fluently, pointing to language access as another hurdle for underserved communities.
Other organizations have tried to address similar gaps with mobile services rather than brick-and-mortar clinics. PAWS Chicago has deployed a 19-foot mobile veterinary clinic, donated by the Banfield Foundation, that it describes as the city's only vehicle devoted to preventive care and treatment for sick and injured animals in underserved neighborhoods. That mobile unit provides basic exams, preventive care and vaccines for up to 300 dogs and cats at community events in Englewood, West Englewood, Woodlawn and Back of the Yards, according to PAWS Chicago. CBS Chicago also lists PAWS Chicago's spay/neuter services among the low-cost pet-care resources available to Chicago-area residents.
For now, Chatham residents will have a fixed address to turn to for the first time. Whether the new clinic can keep pace with rising need across the South Side remains to be seen, but for a neighborhood long without a single veterinary office of its own, Tuesday marks a notable first.
