Baystate Medical Center Announces $500,000 CITC Investment
Baystate Medical Center, based in Springfield announced earlier this month that it had made a $500,000 investment in Revitalize CDC and HAP Housing in Springfield to support their efforts to improve community health through improved housing and community development activities. The three-year investment marks the largest CITC investment ever made by a health care institution and represents a groundbreaking milestone in the growing convergence between the community development and public health fields.
Revitalize CDC will receive $250,000 to support a three-year effort to improve housing conditions for children with asthma and to make home improvements that allow seniors to safely remain in their home. The project will leverage Revitalize CDC’s remarkable volunteer network, enabling these home improvements to be done with high quality and low cost.
HAP Housing will also receive $250,000 to support a three-year effort to improve health in the Old Hill Neighborhood of Springfield. These improvements will be achieved through a combination of physical improvements to parks, sidewalks, and bikeways as well as healthy lifestyle programming designed to activate the newly improved areas and advocacy to help local residents advocate for these and other health maximizing improvements in the neighborhood such as a new food store.
The investments are part of Baystate’s Better Together grant program. Baystate is able to utilize the CITC even though it is a not-for-profit without any tax liability because the CITC is refundable. Therefore, Baystate has already announced that it will use their $250,000 CITC ”refund” to support additional community health programming in the coming years.
MACDC President Joseph Kriesberg spoke at the grant announcement and remarked that “this is a groundbreaking announcement that demonstrates the power of the CITC program to leverage new private investments. I am so excited to see Baystate lead the way in using CITC to leverage the power of community development for improved health outcomes. I can’t wait to tell health care institutions across the state about what is happening here in Springfield. Congratulations.”
Learn more about Baystate's Community Health Needs Assessment