A new development in Camden will combine affordable apartments with a medical clinic in an effort to improve residents’ health
The $24 million project is financed in part by a state program designed specifically to fund mixed-use housing developments near hospitals.
Virtua Health Care on Wednesday broke ground on 47 affordable-housing apartments for seniors in Camden, all atop a medical clinic — part of an emerging housing model that’s aimed at addressing health concerns beyond a doctor’s office.
Representatives from Virtua, South Jersey’s largest health-care provider, said the development is based on the idea that housing, adequate food, and a supportive community can influence a person’s health as much as access to health care.
“To have a roof over your head, a bed to sleep in, a place to call home — these are all fundamental things,” said Dennis Pullin, Virtua’s CEO and president, at a ceremony held at the development’s construction site in Camden’s Whitman Park neighborhood. “You can’t have good health without them.”
The apartment building will be called Oliver Station, after the Rev. Thomas Clement Oliver, a Camden pastor and conductor on the Underground Railroad, and Sheila Oliver, the New Jersey lieutenant governor who passed away in August. The building will sit next to a PATCO station, two schools, a grocery store, and another apartment complex.
The $24 million project is financed in part by a state program designed specifically to fund mixed-use housing developments near hospitals; Oliver Station is less than a mile from Virtua’s Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. The program has funded just one other housing development in the state, in Paterson.
Creating ‘communities of wellness’
Other health systems in the area have also expressed interest in developing housing options near their facilities. In September, Inspira Health announced that it would transform its former Woodbury hospital campus in Gloucester County into a “health and education innovation district.” Inspira has proposed building market-rate and senior housing nearby.
Pullin, the Virtua CEO, said that health systems are not just providers of medical care, but also economic powerhouses in many communities. Increasingly, they are considering how they can improve patients’ health outside of health-care settings.
“We can’t create communities of wellness unless we address things such as transportation, housing, education, mental health,” he said. “We are starting to look at how we can be better community partners to address those things.”
Oliver Station is expected to be completed by the end of next year. The Michaels Organization, a national affordable-housing company based in Camden, partnered with Virtua to design the project.
The apartments, one- and two-bedroom units, will cost between $1,100 and $1,300 a month, said Nick Cangelosi, the senior vice president at Michaels, and are open to people over age 55 who make no more than 60% of the area’s median income. Five units will be rented to seniors experiencing homelessness.
“These are going to be permanent rental homes for seniors, an active adult community,” Cangelosi said. “To have an anchor institution like Virtua that’s stepping up — not only putting health care in the neighborhood, but also putting in resources to build these communities — is tremendous.”