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University Hospital’s first-ever health and wellness center in Newark is the newest project completed under a state project combining health care services and affordable housing. Located in the city’s Fairmount neighborhood, the recently opened clinic provides a broad spectrum of services, including primary care, preventive screenings, women’s health, point of care testing and chronic condition management.

As a community health hub, the 8,000-square-foot center at 388 W. Market St. is designed to enhance social services throughout the neighborhood by connecting much-needed outpatient medical care to an at-risk population.

For University Hospital, the opening represents “a deep commitment to ensuring our community has accessible care that meets the depth and breadth of their health needs,” said Ed Jimenez, president and chief executive officer of the independent, state-owned teaching hospital.

It’s also the second facility created and financed under the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency’s Hospital Partnership Subsidy Program.

Built on the belief that access to quality housing can lead to improved health outcomes, the first-of-its-kind program pairs the development of affordable homes with medical offices.

Through the initiative, NJHMFA matches funding contributions from participating hospitals to provide affordable rental apartments for low- and moderate-income families, as well as apartments with access to supportive and wrap-around services for residents with special needs. It was established in 2019 after the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs released research suggesting that providing supportive housing leads to health care and government cost savings.

According to the findings, such housing units can result in nearly 50% fewer emergency department visits, days spent in hospitals and detox visits.

Jimenez said, “One of the things that’s become clear over the last two decades or so is that housing insecurity can have many tentacles that are problematic. One of the tentacles is a person’s own health and wellness.

“We know through data that primary care is a big, big problem, and I think if you were to examine the city of Newark, you aren’t going to find a huge depth of available primary care doctors outside of doctors located at a hospital,” he said.

“Putting this clinic in the community brings primary care into the community. So, I think that’s a first important intellectual and factual step that we took in this process,” Jimenez added. “The idea was to stimulate the development of additional affordable housing that would also create the ability for those folks that are in very unstable housing situations and maybe not be able to afford housing to have a place that would also contain a medical clinic and wellness center.

“At the time, pre-pandemic, the NJHMFA identified three cities that they wanted to do this in – Paterson, Newark and Camden – and identified health systems in each town,” he said. “As part of that, the identification was ‘Would University Hospital be interested and did it see a need?’” he said.

“At that time, and certainly now, we definitively felt that there was a connection between patients with unstable housing and the frequency with which they use the emergency room and the frequency with which they would then have medical issues,” said Jimenez. “So, we said, ‘yes, we’re on board.’”

Under the terms of the hospital partnership subsidy program, NJHMFA offers low-interest subsidy loans that builders and health care providers can combine with other state and federal funding sources.

As a direct lender and low-income housing tax credit allocator, NJHMFA has the ability to lend, bond and award tax credits sustainably.

Recognized as a model for integrating housing and health care via partnerships, the program has inspired public-private and foundation investments in similar collaborations around the country.

Its work to promote affordable and mixed-income housing construction and economic development has earned NJHMFA several honors, including being named as one of NJBIZ’s 2023 Leaders in Real Estate, Construction and Design.

First opening: Paterson

Though the program quickly generated interest among hospitals and developers following its launch, projects stalled during the pandemic. Now back on track, the effort saw its first facility open last year in Paterson in partnership with St. Joseph’s Health.

Developed in collaboration with New Jersey Community Development Corp., that 56-unit affordable housing community on Barclay Street includes 10 apartments set aside for special needs residents and/or frequent users of the hospital’s emergency department services. The $26.6 million project also added a 3,000-square-foot health and wellness hub operated by St. Joseph’s Health at the base of the building.

A third housing and health care collaboration is under development in Camden through a collaboration between Virtua Health and The Michaels Organization. Named Oliver Station – after the late Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver and Rev. Thomas Clement Oliver – the $24 million project will feature 47 affordable apartments and a medical practice.

Thomas Oliver was a conductor on the Underground Railroad during the Civil War era who briefly lived in Camden and once presided over the Macedonia African Methodist Episcopal Church, the city’s oldest African American institution.

Sheila Oliver chaired the NJHMFA board and was an advocate for affordable housing and home ownership across the state. She died in August 2023.

Altogether, NJHMFA has pledged more than $14.73 million to date for the program and expects to allocate another $22 million for future partnerships with other cities in New Jersey, Real Estate NJ reported.

NJHMFA Executive Director Melanie Walter said, “The hospital partnership subsidy program began with a very simple premise: Housing is health care. Where and how people live affect their well-being. This innovative program is a vehicle for hospitals to make impactful affordable housing and wellness investments in their communities.”

During a July 8 ribbon-cutting ceremony in Newark, Walter said, “It is exciting to see years of collaborative effort to provide high quality housing and community-based medical services come to fruition.”

“This project brings the healthy homes concept to life, advancing community well-being by bringing the might and ingenuity of University Hospital, NJHMFA, The City of Newark, and our many development and community partners together to create a healthy, green, and supportive living and wellness center in the heart of Newark,” she said.

The hospital partnership subsidy program began with a very simple premise: Housing is health care. Where and how people live affect their well-being.
– Melanie Walter, NJHMFA executive director

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka congratulated University Hospital on the opening, saying the facility “will have lasting impacts on our community.”

In a statement, he said, “Fairmount neighborhood residents deserve quality affordable housing and health care within walking distance of their homes.”

Increasing access

In Newark, University Hospital’s 8,000-square-foot clinic occupies the base of a new $42 million mixed-use development at the corner of West Market Street and Littleton Avenue.

Situated on a previously underutilized parking lot belonging to Georgia King Village, an existing 422-unit affordable housing complex, the recently completed building provides 78 affordable rental units that serve low- and moderate-income households.

Sixteen units will be reserved for homeless individuals and families, supported by project-based rental vouchers through the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs. It is also the recipient of 30 project-based rental vouches from the Newark Housing Authority.

The project was a collaboration between University Hospital, L+M Development Partners, Type A Projects and MSquared.

Financing came from a combination of public and private capital, including $18 million in tax credit equity from Wells Fargo, $22 million in mortgage financing from NJHMFA, $1.6 million from the NJHMFA Special Needs Housing Trust Fund, $6 million from the Hospital Partnership Subsidy Program and $3.5 million from the Multifamily Rental Housing Production fund.

University Hospital contributed $3 million, while the City of Newark and Essex County each put $300,000 in HOME funds toward the development.

Construction began in Spring 2022 and was completed last fall.

When it came time to fill the 16 supportive units, Jimenez said several factors were considered, such as age, whether an individual lived alone and if they fell below the 50th percentile of median income in the area. They also looked at usage of University Hospital’s emergency department, particularly those with more than 10 trips a year, Jimenez said.

“Then, we prepared a list of a little over 30 patients that we sent to L&M to interview. From those 30-ish, they picked 16 that would move into the housing simultaneously,” said Jimenez, adding that the residents moved in about four months ago.

“In an inner city, it’s not that they’re going to the ER for primary care per se, it’s that because they have not sought primary care and their primary care condition has worsened to the point that they need immediate medical care, which is what an ER can provide,” he said.

Community needs

Open Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., the health and wellness center aims to serve not only residents of the newly built stable housing units but also the surrounding community.

Following its July 1 grand opening, the facility typically sees about 15 patients a day but hopes to be able to soon handle between 45 and 50 patients a day after it brings on additional providers and services, a spokesperson said. The current staff includes one advanced practice nurse, one patient navigator, one nurse, one ambulatory care technician, two medical assistants and two schedulers.

“It’s designed to be primary care focused on day one because what we want to do is we want to learn about the needs of the community,” Jimenez explained.

“We’re starting out with primary care, but no specialties. I fully anticipate by the end of year one, we will know what kind of specialists the patients that are coming here are needing, and then we’ll be in a better spot to decide how best to provide that, whether it’s telemedicine or onsite, and then what kind of specialties,” he said.

Although it’s only been open a few weeks, Jimenez said the clinic is noticing a trend of diabetes, heart disease or high blood pressure among patients.

“We have heard that mental health is something that we should focus on. So, I think over time as we see more and more patients, we’ll confirm that from feeling to fact,” he added.

Besides extending the reach of the academic medical center, the clinic plans to provide community programming and health education events in a dedicated space, Jimenez said. “I think when you have those three components together – the housing part, the medical delivery part and the education part – then we’re going to be ahead of the game of trying to solve these needs that fragile communities need,” he said.

For Jimenez, the clinic’s opening furthers a commitment to proactive community-based health initiatives. “There’s not many hospitals in New Jersey that have their patient population completely reliant on mass transit and may not own a car. So, when we do things, that’s sort of top of mind,” said Jimenez. He highlighted the hospital’s $1.2 million state-of-the-art breast cancer screening bus that hit the streets in March.

“This is University Hospital’s first off-campus activity in this way. Obviously, the mobile mammography unit is one way we get off campus or our EMS is another way, but in terms of a particular address, this is our first address that’s not on our campus,” Jimenez said. “But it’s not going to be the last because we know that there are other portions of the city of Newark that need us to get closer to them for different things and in different ways. I definitively anticipate that over time you’ll see University take a different approach to trying to meet the community where they are.”

He went on to say, “I’m excited because University Hospital does have a storied history and one of the things we take great pride in is serving the city of Newark and serving the state. And this is one of those moments where we get to take philosophy, words and actions and do something additional.”

“I’m extraordinarily proud that we’re going to take what we do every day here at the hospital in terms of trying to be there for our community and now going actually into an address in the community. It just feels wonderful,” said Jimenez, adding, “I think it’s going to be transformative.”