Many of the Washington Association for Community Health’s (Association) member Community Health Centers (CHCs) do important work in addressing the health-related social needs (HRSNs) of their community members.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, HRSNs are social and economic needs that individuals experience that affect their ability to maintain their health and well-being. These include needs such as employment, healthy food, and affordable and stable housing.
Housing is such a key component of CHC’s work that the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) designated the first day of National Health Center Week to be the Public Health in Housing focus day.
We are highlighting two CHCs, Yakima Neighborhood Health Services (YNHS) and Sea Mar Community Health Centers (Sea Mar), and their exceptional work to help their patients access affordable and sustainable housing.
YNHS recently converted the old Yakima Valley Inn into Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH). The PSH services provide stable, affordable homes with rental assistance and on-site support services, like counseling, job and vocational training, and life skill support. These units’ on-site staff and security provide safety and the support of case managers who help link residents to other critical services, like health care.
Rhonda Hauff, Chief Executive Officer of YNHS said, “Nobody wants to see people living on the streets or in the shelters or encampments. The solution to solving unsheltered homelessness is housing and housing with support services to help people improve their health and the quality of their lives. The only way to do that is with safe and stable housing – and that requires support by trained and talented staff.”
Their PSH program had 232 clients and 134 households in 2023. In the same year, there were 36,377 total visits of all kinds to people experiencing homelessness.
YNHS’s next conversion project, Vecino Apartments, will soon begin remodeling a Motel 6 in downtown Yakima. The project will create 40 more units - half for families and half for young adults 18 to 24. Move-ins will take place in the spring of 2025.
Sea Mar has made providing affordable and transition housing part of their strategic goals to best serve their members. Their housing projects started as early as the 1980s when they received funding from the state legislature to build housing for farmworkers in Pasco. Ever since, Sea Mar has been gradually expanding their housing projects.
Near their first clinic in South Park, a neighborhood of Seattle, Sea Mar operates an affordable housing community called César Chávez Village. The village consists of 25 townhome-style rental apartments that range from two to four bedrooms. They house families with incomes no greater than 60% of King County’s medium income, and they also reserve five apartments for families transitioning from homelessness.
Sea Mar has also expanded their housing projects to Des Moines and Vancouver, which are both co-located with Sea Mar clinic sites to ensure patients are getting the care they need.
Throughout the eastern side of the state, Sea Mar is acquiring new Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) properties to turn into affordable housing for their patients.
There are two new projects currently in development to build affordable housing units on top of existing clinics. In South Park, they are rebuilding a standing clinic and adding six floors of housing on top. A clinic in Kent is undergoing a similar transition. This ensures the integration of services and case management for communities who need it most.
We thank our CHCs for their investment in the health-related social needs of Washingtonians. Happy National Health Center Week!