LIIF Financing Supports a Healthier Community in Tacoma, WA
Client: Joseph M.
Client Location: Tacoma, WA
CDFI: Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF)
CDFI Service Area: National
Financing
Joseph M. knows the pain of living without affordable, quality health care. The Tacoma, WA resident has AIDS. And lacking health insurance, he spent an entire year caring for himself at home before learning about Community Health Care (CHC). The nonprofit health care provider, which operates six medical clinics across the Tacoma area, literally saved his life.
“[Hilltop CHC] worked with me as a person, not just an AIDS patient. They gave me a second chance to live.” —Joseph, Uninsured CHC Patient & Aids Survivor
To meet the needs of neighbors like Joseph, CHC recently expanded its services in Tacoma’s extremely distressed Hilltop neighborhood when it opened the Hilltop Regional Health Center. Annually, the center provides primary, urgent, and dental care to 17,000 low-income men, women, and children.
CHC was able to build this 59,000 square-foot state-of-the-art facility with the help of the Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF), a national CDFI that creates opportunity for low-income people and communities through financing community building initiatives.
LIIF provided $14 million in New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) allocation as part of a $27.5 million transaction in partnership with U.S. Bancorp and the National Development Council to finance Hilltop Regional Health Center’s construction. Additionally, LIIF, The Reinvestment Fund, another OFN Member CDFI, provided a $4.3 million bridge loan through their financing initiative with The Kresge Foundation.
Opened in October 2013 while improving the physical health of people who live in Hilltop, the project has also strengthened the economic health of the community with the creation of 130 jobs.