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August 17, 2022
Dear City Council and Planning Commission,

| write to you today, both as the President of Open Door Community Health Centers, and on
behalf of the thirteen members of the North Coast Healthcare Leadership Committee; we
strongly support the well-crafted, conscientious, and forward-thinking Gateway Area Plan for
Arcata. Putting this plan into action will help support the health and sustainability of our
community.

Having been a member of this community for 40 years, never has it been clearer to me that
housing is health. Housing, or lack of it, affects our individual health, the health of our
businesses, and the health of our community. As the leader of an organization that provides
most of the primary care and pregnancy services to Humboldt and Del Norte counties, this is
what keeps me up at night.

Open Door and our community partners invest huge amounts of time and money to train
and mentor young physicians and dentists, so that they can join our community and serve
the healthcare of the North Coast into the future. Currently we export these talented young
people to serve other communities because they cannot afford to stay in ours. The same is
true of our nursing and other educational programs.

Open Door’s number one barrier to recruiting and retaining physicians is lack of affordable
housing. If the most well-compensated members of our care teams cannot enter the housing market other critical members of our care teams have no chance. Without nurses, medical assistants, and support staff, healthcare simply cannot happen.

When we recently surveyed our staff about housing conditions almost two thirds of them
responded:

e 65% have struggled to find quality affordable housing in the last five years.

e 45% said that being able to find or afford housing may affect whether or not they stay in
the region or at Open Door.

e 35% shared that finding or paying for housing impacted their work performance, due to
long commutes, financial stress, and other factors.

e 41% reported paying 30% or more of their income on housing; the federal government
considers this “housing cost burdened”; alarmingly, 25% reported paying over 50% of
their income on housing.

Housing is now a top priority for Open Door (like every other major employer in our area),
because a lack of safe, affordable housing for workers means results in inadequate
healthcare for the community. The current housing crisis (like the climate crisis) is here now
and hurting the health of our community now.

The Gateway Area Plan offers both rigorous, research-based analysis of our housing
problems and a plan of action, based on best practices, and our community values, for us to
follow. Under David Loya’s thoughtful, community-focused leadership, the City of Arcata’s
staff have created clear guidelines and direction. With a consistent process, the Gateway
Area Plan can deliver on the needs of our community.
Current objections to the Gateway Plan that seek to maintain the status quo ignore the current crisis,
and the future consequences for our community, if we do not act now. Let us move forward with
openness to adapting and improving as need arises.

|, and the leaders of healthcare services on the North Coast, appreciate this opportunity to share our
concerns and our wholehearted support for the Gateway Area Plan. | welcome any and all opportunities
to further discuss the topic of housing with you, individually or as group.

Kind regards,

Tory Starr
President & Chief Executive Officer
Open Door Community Health Centers

—————————————–

DATE: 4/26/2022
TO: Arcata City Planning Commission
RE: Housing Shortage Impact on Health Care Workforce
Dear Commission Members,
The North Coast Health Care Leadership Team is reaching out to express our concerns about the housing
shortage in Humboldt County and its impact on recruitment and retention of health care professionals.
As healthcare leaders in this community, we would like to raise the awareness of our community in regards to
the far reaching impacts that the shortage of affordable housing has on economy, the health status of our
populations and our workforce. Despite a significant amount of publicity regarding the housing crisis in
California and the increase in our houseless population, the understanding of the lack of workforce housing and
the impact on our economy has been absent. We have entered a new phase on the Northcoast regarding
economic growth and health status improvement. If we are not able to quickly and substantially increase the
housing stock of affordable units we will be mired in economic stagnation as our needed workforce will not
have a place to live. The continuing shortage of available housing options for health care workers of all income
levels, from medical assistants to physicians, has negatively impacted our organizations’ ability to recruit and
retain qualified professionals.
As you know, Humboldt County is a federally designated Health Professional Shortage Area for both primary
care and mental health. With your help, the North Coast Health Leadership Team has taken great strides to
recruit and train health care professionals, including the new residency program led by Providence St. Joseph
Hospital and Open Door Community Health Centers, the BSN program at Cal Poly Humboldt and the Health
Careers Education Summer Institute. We are working to “grow our own” healthcare workforce here.
Unfortunately, these efforts are undermined by the lack of housing options for students and professionals to stay
or return to Humboldt County.
We as business leaders of health care in our community request that all efforts be made to support safe,
affordable and diverse housing development in all of our communities. We need to address this issue as a top
priority, removing unnecessary or inappropriate barriers to increasing our housing supply help us in increasing
our health care workforce and improving the health of our communities.
Sincerely,
North Coast Health Leadership Team,
1. California Center for Rural Policy
2. Hospice of Humboldt
3. Humboldt Senior Resource Center
4. Humboldt County Department of Health & Human Services
5. Humboldt Independent Practice Association
6. Mad River Community Hospital
7. North Coast Clinics Program
8. North Coast Health Improvement and Information Network
9. Open Door Community Health Centers
10. Providence in Humboldt
11. Providence Medical Group Humboldt
12. Sutter Coast Hospital
13. United Indian Health Services