A prescription for Chatham workforce housing shortage

April 17-- Apr. 17--CHATHAM -- Broad Reach Healthcare has long provided housing for clients of Liberty Commons nursing home and The Victorian, an assisted-living facility.

Now the organization is buying real estate to house employees and give them a break on the high cost of area rents.

Broad Reach has bought the Captain Haskell Rose building on Main Street, which includes six apartments, and is in the process of making an offer on another eight units in Chatham, President and CEO William Bogdanovich said.

The health care organization also owns a six-bedroom house in Brewster, where nurses recruited from Puerto Rico live as they go through the stateside licensing process while working as certified nursing assistants for Broad Reach.

The high cost of housing in the Chatham area makes it difficult to attract entry-level workers, Bogdanovich said. Recruiting "front-line workforce is as challenging as it's ever been."

The goal with employer-owned housing is to take some of the sting out of the rental sticker cost, he said.

The one-bedroom apartments in the Captain Haskell Rose building, which now also will be known as Broad Reach Highland Lodge, will rent for $1,150 a month, a little less than the $1,200 to $1,300 a month Broad Reach employees are paying for similar rental units, Bogdanovich said.

As part of a workforce housing initiative, apartment renters who work for Broad Reach will be able to stretch out first and last months' rent and security deposits over time and pay less in winter when electric heat bills go up, making up the cost in the summer, he said.

Broad Reach employees also will be able to pay their rent through a weekly payroll deduction rather than through one larger check on the first of the month, Bogdanovich said.

The six units in the Captain Haskell Rose building currently are occupied by renters not associated with Broad Reach Healthcare, but Bogdanovich said he anticipates his employees will make their way into the units through attrition.

The first floor of the building on Main Street is undergoing renovations to become Broad Reach field offices including the hospice program.

Broad Reach officials hope that plans to buy another eight apartment units come into fruition by summer, Bogdanovich said.

In the meantime, five CNAs from Puerto Rico are paying rents of $85 per week in the house owned by Broad Reach in Brewster.

"You save a lot of money. It's key," said Luis Montalvo of Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. "Cape Cod is a little expensive."

Montalvo lives in the six-bedroom house with one other man and three women.

They share a kitchen, dining room, living room, basement, laundry area and lounge.

Montalvo recently graduated from nursing school in Puerto Rico and decided to work toward his license in the United States after hearing about Broad Reach's program.

"I saw the opportunity over here," he said.

Bogdanovich said he estimates it will take the nursing school graduates 18 to 24 months to receive their stateside credentials.

The Puerto Rican workers agreed as part of their recruitment to work for Broad Reach for four years, part of the time as CNAs and then as nurses after getting licensed, Bogdanovich said.

"They started work in September. They're great," Bogdanovich said.

He said Broad Reach did not qualify for workers through the J-1 visa program because it is a year-round employer, but he discovered there were fewer barriers to bringing workers to the Cape from Puerto Rico because it is a U.S. territory.

"More and more nurses are going into retirement," Bogdanovich said. "We're looking at it as an investment in our future."

Businesses with a strong seasonal aspect such as Ocean Edge in Brewster already are supplying workforce housing.

Nantucket Cottage Hospital, which opened a new hospital building this winter, plans to provide employee housing to recruit and retain employees on the island, which has a notoriously high cost of housing.

Alisa Galazzi, CEO of Housing Assistance Corp. in Hyannis, said Broad Reach's initiative is the first year-round business investment in workforce housing that she knows of on the Cape.

"It's a good strategy. It's a win-win for sure," she said.

Broad Reach has a reputation for providing some of the best senior care in the region, but to continue that Bogdanovich "has got to be able to attract and train CNAs. Bill's going to have a hard time getting people to commute to Chatham," Galazzi said.

"The larger employers have been buying housing for their seasonal workforce for years," Wendy Northcross, CEO of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, said via email. "And now the approach is being utilized by employers for year-round housing -- good for them! It does show leadership in addressing a problem, and yet there are many smaller businesses that may find that solution prohibitively expensive.

"The stronger, more stable companies will be in a better position to secure and manage housing," Northcross said. "Hopefully it will be manageable for the companies to oversee and maintain."

"It's not going to solve the problem. It's a dent," said Bogdanovich, whose company employs 275 people.

"It makes a difficult set of circumstances a little less difficult," he said.

-- Follow Cynthia McCormick on Twitter: @Cmccormickcct.

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