After Dr. Mutahher Mohammed completed his residency in July, he was thrilled to accept a position as a primary care physician at Mercy Health — Urbana Family Medicine and Pediatrics in Ohio. Working in Urbana meant he and his family could move to nearby Springfield, Ohio, where Mohammed had lived from age 2 to 18. He had been eager to return to the beloved community where his parents and boyhood friends still live.

The icing on the cake was that a new employee benefit from Mercy Health provided him $10,000 in down payment assistance when he and his wife, Iman, bought a home in Springfield for their growing family in August. The couple have three children: daughter Minha, 4; son Suliman, 2; and son Humza, who was born in December. Mohammed says while the Mercy Health culture was the biggest draw for him, the down payment help was "a very good added bonus. … it felt like someone was looking after me."

Mohammed was the first employee to take advantage of the benefit that Mercy Health — Springfield began offering last year. Another Bon Secours Mercy Health market in Ohio, Mercy Health — Lima, just began offering a similar down payment assistance program.

Mercy Health leaders in Springfield and Lima say they expect this benefit will improve employee recruitment and retention, increase employee satisfaction and well-being, build up homeownership in local communities, and encourage community investment and stabilization.

"We want our associates to be lifelong partners with us," and when they live nearby, that can deepen their commitment to the organization and to the community, says Beth Keehn, director of community and government affairs for Mercy Health — Lima.

Megan Douglas, Mercy Health — Springfield chief market human resources director, says the Ohio programs are pilots for possible duplication in other Bon Secours Mercy Health markets.

Springfield
Douglas says the Springfield market's program — the first of its kind at Bon Secours Mercy Health — originated from leadership discussions of how to differentiate Mercy Health from other local employers. "We were looking for a unique benefit offering for employees that stands out from our competitors," she explains.

In surveys, employees said they wanted enhanced benefits, and the executives came up with the down payment program idea as part of a broader effort to sweeten their offerings.

The program is in partnership with Fifth Third Bank, which has locations in Springfield. Employees of Mercy Health — Springfield facilities are eligible for a $10,000 direct-to-home payment that is paired with an 18-month retention agreement from the closing date of their loan. Employees must receive their home loan through Fifth Third, and that bank serves as their "lender partner," providing needed expertise for getting the mortgage and closing on the home, says Douglas.

Mercy Health — Springfield is budgeting to allocate a specific number of down payments. Last year, employees claimed four of the five down payment allotments. This year, 10 are available. But the program is evolving, and the allotment could increase, says Douglas.

To take advantage of the benefit, employees must purchase a home in Clark or Champaign counties. Douglas notes that there is a variety of housing stock in both counties, but there are affordability and availability challenges in the local housing market. She says the benefit should help with affordability. A housing initiative Mercy Health has partnered on in Springfield should help with the availability issue, Douglas notes.

Springfield market leaders are monitoring the impact of the benefit. "The goal is to help get (employees) invested and involved, feeling connected to this community, so they can become long-term fixtures in the amazing progress we're making here," Adam Groshans, Mercy Health — Springfield president, says in a release.

Lima
Since about 2017, Mercy Health has been partnering with others to restabilize a particular local census tract in Lima that was at a "tipping point" between resurgence and deterioration. Mercy Health has been providing community investment fund dollars to a company formed by some Lima business owners to purchase and renovate homes in that census tract. Keehn says Mercy Health — Lima's down payment program is tangentially connected to this work, although employees don't have to use the benefit in that census tract.

When Mercy Health — Lima recently became eligible to receive funding from the city, it decided to "give back" to the community by applying the funds to a down payment assistance benefit for employees.

Mercy Health — Lima is receiving $30,000 per year for five years that it is using to offer down payment assistance of up to $10,000. It began offering the benefit in November. As of January, no employees had yet signed up.

In the census tract targeted for stabilization, Keehn notes, rent and mortgage payments are about the same. Keehn says helping employees buy a home "can help them eliminate the rental burden and also to build generational wealth."

Happy homeowners
Mohammed and his wife live just a mile and a half from his parents. He's enjoying reconnecting with his Springfield friends. His wife is having fun decorating the new house, and his son is excited to be moving from a crib into a bunkbed. His daughter is at the perfect age for the move and is looking forward to making new friends, he says.

Mohammed says living near the Urbana clinic where he practices affords him quality of life because he has a reasonable commute. He says he likes that the down payment benefit could attract more young doctors to Springfield. He says with the community's aging population, there had been a decline in population. Now he sees young talent is returning to the city. Young clinicians like himself "are helping Mercy and Springfield grow," he says.

Back in Lima, Keehn says the type of community pride Mohammed feels is what Mercy Health hopes to cultivate in employees in both Ohio markets, in part through the benefit program. "We want to support our associates in being lifelong partners. We're aiming to improve local housing and the cities we serve," she says.

Ultimately, through well-being gains, leaders hope to increase the employees' commitment to Mercy Health and people living in surrounding communities. "And this will improve the health and well-being of our patients," she says.