When Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospitalâs chief executive talks about the challenges facing his organization, housing is near the top of the list.
âItâs really astounding,â Shawn Tester, who heads the hospital in St. Johnsbury, said last month. â ⌠We ended up having to rent a dorm from one of our local high schools for travelers because thereâs literally no place for them to live when they come work at the hospital.â
Tester has plenty of company. Every one of the leaders who spoke at a Feb. 16 press conference organized by the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems had a housing story to tell â from prospective employees who backed out of job offers for lack of housing to existing staff struggling with the stateâs meager options.
âItâs become a huge barrier to our ability to recruit new people to the area,â Tester said in an interview this week. âI canât solve my workforce problem without having the housing problem solved.â
Two years into a pandemic that thinned the stateâs health care workforce, hospital executives are increasingly desperate to hire. But some have found that raises and bonuses are not enough. Would-be employees canât find a place to live in Vermontâs tight housing markets.
So, hospitals are stepping in to help.
In Burlington, University of Vermont Medical Center is working with a local developer to build 61 employee apartments. Construction is scheduled to begin later this month.
By summer, Rutland Regional Medical Center executives hope to have a pipeline of rentals for their prospective employees.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health wants to develop 400 affordable units geared toward employees at its flagship campus in Lebanon, New Hampshire, on the Vermont border.
And in the Northeast Kingdom, Testerâs hospital is also looking to develop some land on its campus for employee housing.
âWe really donât have a choice but to participate in the activity of trying to expand housing for our workforce,â said Brian Kerns, vice president of human resources at Rutland Regional.
âAn investmentâ
Rutland Regional executives hope to fill an immediate need by reserving some existing housing for their employees, but Kerns isnât ruling out new construction down the road.
âWe donât have plans right now,â he said. âIt could come to it, I suppose, and that would even be more outside of our core business.â
New construction can be complicated and expensive, but executives at the UVM Medical Center believe itâs the best option in Burlingtonâs volatile housing market, said Al Gobeille, executive vice president for operations at the UVM Health Network.
The housing complex on South Burlingtonâs Market Street would cost UVM Medical Center $2.8 million. The Snyder Braverman Development Co. would own, build and manage the building. UVM Medical Center employees will occupy some or all of the 61 apartments for at least the next 10 years.
âItâs an investment,â Gobeille said. âWe think that thereâs good judgment in that (project), being (that itâs) something that can help us deal with the crisis weâre in.â
Gobeille noted that UVM Medical Center expects to spend upward of $120 million in the next year on temporary staffing.
The health networkâs involvement in housing could pose some challenges. For one, leaders have been very vocal about the networkâs financial challenges. Its recent public standoff with UnitedHealthcare over rate increases could hurt some 2,900 patients in Vermont and New York.
The networkâs real estate project wonât get a close look from the Green Mountain Care Board, the body that oversees hospital growth in Vermont. In a Feb. 14 letter to the board, network executives argued that, among other reasons, the project is exempt from review because it isnât a health care facility. The Green Mountain Care Board agreed, according to a Feb. 24 ruling.
Representatives from the Green Mountain Care Board were not available Friday to comment on the decision.
The health network isnât the first to dip its toe into real estate. For years, the Bennington-based Southwestern Vermont Medical Center has been renovating houses that eventually sell to employees.
Tester, of the St. Johnsbury hospital thatâs been housing employees in a high school dorm, said the staffing crisis is forcing executives to think creatively.
âWhen youâre haying and the baler breaks and thereâs a thunderstorm coming, you got to figure out how to fix the baler and get the hay up in the barn,â he said.