Beth Keehn, director of community and government affairs for Mercy Health, shares information on Mercy Health’s new down payment assistance program at Wednesday’s mayoral press briefing.
Jacob Espinosa | The Lima News
LIMA — Beth Keehn, the director of community and government affairs for Mercy Health, said the health system knows it cannot solve housing in Lima on its own, but with a new down payment program for associates and partners, it can help.
Mercy Health announced the program, which offers a forgivable loan of 10 percent of the purchase price of a home, up to $10,000, to associates this week and was made possible by funding from a city grant program.
“We set the funds aside to make sure whatever we did with them was going to make an impact in our community and support our associates,” Keehn said. “Anyone who wishes to purchase a home in our neighborhood, which is Census Tract 129, qualifies for the assistance as long as they stay there for five years.”
Lima tax administrator Chris Fast said the Lima New Jobs Program requires employers to have a qualifying new payroll of at least $200,000 to $4 million annually.
“What that does is we have to go through to determine what employees are actually new,” he said. “Anything after that five years gets counted in this program, and the employer then gets back a portion reimbursed with taxes withheld. This is a decent amount of money, and St. Rita’s is putting it back into the footprint of their hospital.”
Ronda Lehman, president of Mercy Health-Lima, said in a statement the health system was doing this to address the health of the people working for it and partners such as Ensemble, HHS Compassus and CBRE.
“In fact, conditions of housing and neighborhoods are one of the most important predictors of a person’s health,” Lehman said. “Every family deserves to live in a safe, affordable home where they have the opportunity to thrive, and we are thrilled to offer this unique benefit to our associates looking to establish roots while navigating this challenging economy.”
Lima Mayor Sharetta Smith said the program, in concert with city loan programs, could add up to $25,000 toward housing costs.
“We know that economic development is closely tied to the housing stock within an area, and employers looking at an area are checking to see if it’s an area where they and their employees want to live,” she said. “We want to say to the community and other employers in the community to take advantage of the program we have here at the city to do exactly what Mercy Health has done.”
For more information on the program, visit bit.ly/3C53tZX.
Reach Jacob Espinosa at 567-242-0399.
