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Supporting
Community Health Centers
 Although they serve a predominantly low-income population,
community health center facilities do not have to look like it. This
California facility pictured above, completed in 2000, is one of seven
service delivery sites managed by a community health center with a $14
million annual operating budget. The health center is co-located with
low-income senior housing as part of a campus that allows seniors to
remain in their community. This state-of-the-art facility also includes
an adult day health center that accommodates approximately 20,000 patient
visits annually. Virtually all of the health center’s patients
live at or below 100 percent of the federal poverty level, which is less
than $9,000 in annual income for an individual or about $18,000 for a
family of four.
The campus occupies space in a predominantly residential
neighborhood with a handful of small service businesses in the immediate
area. It
replaced decaying housing, which provided a notable improvement to the
neighborhood. For every job created by the health center, it is estimated
that another 1.5 jobs are created in the community to provide support
services to the facility and its users.
Like many health centers, this
facility was constructed with a combination of fundraising and debt.
A strong capital campaign allowed the health
center to
raise more than 30 percent of the construction budget, which is above average
for many capital campaigns. The balance of the project was financed with a combination
of conventional loans and tax-exempt debt.
In Supporting Community Health Centers:
Strengthening the Health Care Safety Net through
Financing and Technical Assistance Scott Sporte of the NCB Development
Corporation (www.ncbdc.org) and Mark Lurtz of
Capital Link (www.caplink.org) discuss
their organization’s efforts to increase the availability of health clinics
throughout this country.
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