Housing Matters Videos Now Up.

From recent MacArthur Foundation/HUD sponsored conference, seven YouTube videos are posted HERE.

Example: Housing as a Platform for Health video is HERE and embedded below



Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Urban Institute Has Extensive Evaluation of Chicago PHA Family Case Management Demonstration Program.

Main page for this research is HERE.

The Supporting Vulnerable Public Housing Families Chicago Family Case Management Demonstration, an innovative effort to test the feasibility of using public and assisted housing as a platform for providing services to vulnerable families. The Chicago Family Case Management Demonstration has produced a successful model for providing wraparound services to residents in public and assisted housing settings. The briefs in this series describe service implementation and costs, along with participant outcomes across four domains: employment, health, housing and relocation, and children and youth.

Evaluation of 6 different topics are included in this research:

1. An Overview of the Chicago Family Case Management Demonstration
2. A New Model for Integrating Housing and Services
3. Tackling the Biggest Challenge: Intensive Case Management and CHA Residents’ Health
4. Moving "Hard to House" Residents to Work: The Role of Intensive Case Management
5. Relocating Vulnerable Public Housing Families
6. Reaching the Next Generation: The Crisis for CHA's Youth

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

HUD/FHA Approves $22 Million Hospital in Coquille, Providing 383 Construction Jobs/40 Full Time Permanent Jobs When Completed.

HUD PR is HERE. From PR

The FHA-insured mortgage loan will be used to construct a new three-story, 18-bed, critical access hospital adjacent to the existing facility...The loan will also be used to refinance a 2005 loan related to expansion of the Coquille Medical Clinic. By insuring the mortgage loan, FHA is enabling the hospital to obtain lower cost financing that will save an estimated $1.5 million in interest expense over the life of the loan....HUD estimates the Coquille Valley Hospital construction project will support 383 full-time jobs and provide an estimated economic stimulus of more than $55.2 million to the community. Once completed, it is estimated the project will support 40 full-time jobs and provide an annual economic benefit of $6.2 million.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Smoke Free Public Housing Authorities.

I noticed that Detroit is considering plan to declare PH units as smoke free; from Smoke-Free Environments Law Project in Ann Arbor found listing HERE of 225 PHA's around the country that have created smoke free environments in some or all of their projects. 

Was pleased to see that Oregon has 14 PHA's that have banned smoking in some or all of their units, with list pasted below: (If anyone knows additional Oregon PHA's let me know and I update this and will add them to the list). 

Clatsop

Columbia Cascade

Coos-Curry

Jackson

Lane

Linn-Benton

Marion County

North Bend

Northwest Oregon

Portland

Salem

Umatilla

Washington

West Valley

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Stayton Hospital Gets $27.1 Million FHA Loan that Uses OFA Bonds.

HUD PR is HERE.

Santiam Memorial Hospital operates a 40-bed facility and three on-campus clinics, as well as off-site clinics in the nearby towns of Mill City, Sublimity, and Aumsville. The FHA-insured mortgage loan will be used to construct a four-story patient tower with private beds adjacent to the existing hospital building. This new tower will replace the outdated facility that was constructed in 1963. It will house medical/surgical units, an intensive care unit, surgical services, and obstetrics. The existing building will be refurbished and used as a chapel and to increase outpatient activity space....HUD estimates the Santiam Memorial Hospital construction project will support 394 full-time jobs and provide an estimated economic stimulus of more than $73.1 million to the community. Once completed, it is estimated the project will support 157 full-time jobs and provide an annual economic benefit of more than $26 million..

Oregon Facilities Authority Involvement. 

Other news stories seem to have missed the fact that the Oregon Facilities Authority authorized the sale of bonds for this project. 

Health facilities are one of a eligible OFA activities; I noticed that their agenda for meeting tomorrow includes a $6.3 million Central City Concern financing that will also use New Market Tax Credits: 

....for the issuance of revenue bonds in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed $6,300,000 (the "Bonds"). Bond proceeds will be used to (i) to finance a portion of the costs of and reimbursement of certain expenses associated with capital construction, improvement, and acquisition and installation of equipment, for a state licensed outpatient mental health and addiction treatment center of the Participating Institution and its affiliated entities located in Portland's Old Town, (ii) to finance a portion of the costs of and reimbursement of certain expenses associated with
capital construction, improvement, expansion, renovation and acquisition and installation of equipment, for the Old Town Clinic, a federally qualified health center of the Participating Institution and its affiliated entities, (iii) to fund a debt service reserve fund for the Bonds and (iv) pay costs of issuing the Bonds (collectively, the "Project"). The Project is being funded by a combination of federal HRSA funds, New Market Tax Credit proceeds and Bond proceeds.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

FHA Approves Financing of $292 Million Hospital in Pennslyvania.

HUD PR is HERE.

Two FHA Hospital Loans: $1 Billion +

Last year HUD approved the largest FHA loan in history, a $756 million FHA insured hospital loan in New Jersey; together the TWO deals represent $1.048 Billion in FHA insured hospital loans. (Earlier post is HERE).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: CRS Report on Use of Budget Reconciliation Procedures, 1980-2008.

HERE. (22 measures have been passed by Congress, 3 vetoed by President Clinton).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Remote Hospital in Michigan Getting $28 Million FHA Hospital Construction Loan in County With 23% Unemployment Rate.

Detroit Free Press story HERE.

L'Anse is a village of 2,000 on Lake Superior in the remote Upper Peninsula of Michigan, (It is about 50 miles from Ontonagon where my mother and her family lived and the area also includes the L'Anse Indian Reservation, the oldest Res in Michigan).

103 jobs from the development is a big deal in this area, which had a county unemployment rate of 23.8% in August of 2009. (The UP has had a series of failed "job creating" economic development projects over the years, and I hope that this is not one of them).

P.S. Next time I whine about Portland winters I will remember (OUCH!) that L'Anse, similar to Ontonagon, has:

• An average snowfall of 140 inches a year,
• An average of more than 40 days a year below zero.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: State Health Care System Scorecards.

Courtesy of Bespacific:

Results from a State Scorecard on Health System Performance, 2009

News release: "Focused on identifying opportunities to improve, The Commonwealth Fund's State Scorecard on Health System Performance assesses states’ performance on health care relative to achievable benchmarks for 38 indicators of access, quality, costs, and health outcomes. The 2009 State Scorecard paints a picture of health care systems under stress, with deteriorating health insurance coverage for adults and rising health care costs. On a positive note, there were gains in children's coverage as a result of national reforms, and improvement in some measures of hospital and nursing home care following federal efforts to publicly report quality data. The scorecard highlights persistent wide variation in performance across states and continued evidence of poor care coordination. Increasing cost pressures and deterioration in access across the U.S., together with geographic disparities in performance, underscore the urgent need for comprehensive national reforms to ensure access, change the trajectory of costs, and enhance value.

• "This interactive U.S. map draws from The Commonwealth Fund State Scorecard, 2009. Use the map to view state-specific rankings and results compared to benchmarks, and to view the number of lives and dollars each state could save by achieving benchmark levels of performance.
• Executive Summary
• Fund Report
• PDF Chartpack
• PPT Chartpack
• Data Tables
• Related postings on health care

OREGON results are HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Corrected: House Financial Services Subcommittee to Hold Hearing on Work and Health Care for HUD Tenants.

Hearing is on MONDAY, not Saturday....

Hearing is scheduled for Friday in NYC; hearing page is HERE.

I am hopeful that hearing includes discussion about Express Lane income eligibility provisions that would allow housing authority income determinations to be used for Medicaid/SCHIP care eligibility. (See my prior blog post on Express Lane HERE).

I project that housing authorities provide housing for close to 4 million children nationwide.

A fuller explanation of Express Lane and automated enrollment in Medicaid and SCHIP can be found in this Urban Institute publication HERE.

(I have tried to contact two different individuals in Oregon DHS but to date have had no response to my Express Lane questions).

Oregon Life Expectancy: Eight Largely Rural Counties Showed Declines for Women from 1983-1999.

(I know this is not exactly a housing story, but I'm gonna shoehorn it in here anyway).

Various mainstream media stories in last couple of days have reported that life expectancy has declined in some counties in the United States from 1961-1999 or 1983-1999. The Oregonian story HERE says that 180 counties in the US had declining life expectancies for women from 1983-1999 .

None of stories I have seen have included Oregon specific data on life expectancies. However, I was able to track down and extract Oregon county level data from the source; a PDF file of the original report that led to the media stories, with national summary results, can be found HERE.

The Excel file I created HERE contains two worksheets with an extract of selected information for All Oregon counties A. From 1961-1999 and B. From 1983-1999. (When looking at the data my read is that for any given year the data shows the life expectancy for a person born in that year).

1983-1999, Life Expectancy for Women DID Decline in Eight Oregon Counties
According to my calculations, there ARE EIGHT counties in Oregon where the life expectancies of women declined from 1983-1999. The Oregon counties with declining life expectancies for women from 1983-1999 were largely rural: Clatsop, Grant, Harney, Lake, Linn, Malheur, Morrow, and Union. The largest decline in LE for women was 1.3%.

1961-1999, NO Declines in Life Expectancy.
My summary calculation using data for the longer period of 1961-1999 (with Multnomah County data included below to provide a county specific example):

1. Life expectancies in ALL Oregon counties increased for BOTH men and women. Male life expectancies grew faster than women. (Multnomah County LE for men increased by 7.5 years, and for women by 5.1 years).
   
2. As a result of the variable rates of men/women growth, the gap between life expectancies of men and women declined. (The Multnomah County gap declined by 30% or 2.4 years).
3. Women still had substantially longer life expectancies than men in 1999. (Multnomah County women LE was 79.35 years vs. LE of men at 73.71 years, a remaining gap of more than 5 1/2 years).