The lack of affordable housing in the Berkshires is undermining our local economy as well as other aspects of our local living. To help educate our community about the extent of the problem and possible solutions, “Business Monday!” at The Berkshire Edge has organized a free webinar open to all members of the Berkshire community. Secretary of Housing and Livable Communities for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Ed Augustus will be our featured panel member. Other panel members are Jim Harwood, president of the Community Development Corporation of South Berkshire; Eileen Peltier, CEO and president of Hearthway Inc.; and Jane Ralph, executive director of Construct Inc. Doug Mishkin, a member of the Egremont Municipal Affordable Housing Trust, will serve as moderator. Members of the business community and other participants will be invited to ask questions.
The webinar will take place live on Wednesday, March 12, 9:30 to 11 a.m., and will subsequently be available for streaming on The Berkshire Edge. Sign-in information will be made available shortly.
In anticipation of this event, The Edge is asking representatives of the local business community to describe how the housing shortage is impacting their operations. As Eric Singer, founder of Magnetworks (a Berkshire-grown next-generation job-search platform) notes, “When people can’t afford to live where they work, businesses can’t afford to hire. An unaffordable housing market shrinks the talent pool, increases turnover, and makes every hire an uphill battle.”
In a recent interview, Tony Scibelli, chief operating officer for Fairview Hospital, and Patrick Borek, chief human resources officer for Berkshire Health Systems—which owns and operates Fairview Hospital in Great Barrington, Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, and North Adams Regional Hospital, in addition to numerous provider practices—share how the current affordable-housing shortage is impacting two vital health care systems in the Berkshires.
“A significant barrier, on multiple levels”
“The housing shortage is a significant barrier for us on multiple levels,” Patrick Borek begins. “Filling entry-level staff positions has been particularly difficult, given the cost of available housing.” While a large number of medical assistants and front-desk support staff commute from Central County, the cost of housing severely restricts their ability to hire or host students needing to rotate and limits the number of students they are able to hire for clinical rotations through area colleges and universities due to the lack of affordable housing within walking distance of the facility.
Tony Scibelli echoes his concerns. “We’re not at liberty to have jobs that are fully remote since the bulk of our work is direct patient care. Fairview Hospital itself has 15 vacant positions currently.” Because they are not able to fill them with staff in close proximity to their facility, they end up expanding their reach as far as Troy, N.Y., and beyond, but he worries the 80-minute commute will grow old and people will leave—a poor return on all the investment they put into training.
Finding enough staff to fill the need in the Berkshires has been a problem for a long time, both point out, but is even harder since COVID. “There’s a national crisis when it comes to filling positions in healthcare, but it’s magnified here in the Berkshires,” Scibelli says.
Moreover, he worries about the impact the long commutes and financial hardship caused by the housing shortage is having on current staff. “The stress level is high. This puts pressure on our system. To make things work, we either need to find people willing to work more overtime or limit our outpatient availability options,” he explains.
Borek also worries about the stress on staff who work overtime in an industry already threatened by burnout. In addition, both have had to rely on traveling nurses and temp agencies—which are typically 13-week assignments—to fill their positions. “Hiring from a temp agency is significantly higher in cost but is often the only solution,” Borek admits, adding, “It takes a lot of investment to train them and teach them our computer systems for a short time.”
“We’re blessed to have a very dedicated work staff, and they are doing everything they can, but this presents a very significant challenge,” he reiterates. Although some hospitals have experimented with pilot projects (BHS secured a few rooms at Thornewood Inn, recently developed by the Community Development Corporation of South Berkshire), he stresses the importance of sticking to their core competencies, given the overwhelming demands for healthcare. “Scaling real estate investment to the extent it would help solve the problem is simply out of reach for us now,” he concedes.
The higher the position, the broader the search
Filling the technical and administrative support jobs is handled locally, but many medical physician searches require national searches targeting New York and Boston and conducted online. As Borek notes, “We already employ most of the physicians in the region, so almost all of the physicians we add are recruited from outside the region, creating a very competitive process. As soon as you throw relocation into the formula, the challenge increases.”
Is it limiting who they can hire? “Absolutely,” both agree. “We’re filling 600 jobs a year to keep our health system running,” Borek says, “and in many cases where a candidate declined, lack of affordable housing was a deciding factor.” Even doctors, who earn well beyond the entry-level salaries, experience difficulties with housing, he adds. For a broad range of workers—including therapists, social workers, nurses, and physicians—it is growing harder to make ends meet.
“There’s always been a huge shortage of primary care physicians, but given the rising costs in housing and shortage of available units, along with the growing demands for healthcare, staffing our local healthcare organizations is becoming extremely difficult,” Borek cautions.
Are there any remedies?
“We can’t recruit enough medical assistants from this area,” Borek admits; however, the Career Pathways Program (for training registered nurses) at several local schools has offered some relief. “We are lucky to have several local colleges (Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and Berkshire Community College, in particular) that offer training for registered nurses, as well as Charles H. McCann Technical School in North Adams, which offers training for licensed practical nurses and technical assistants,” he says.
“We also train nursing assistants and medical assistants in house at BHS and place graduate students in practices,” Borek notes. “Pittsfield has some student housing (assigned temporarily), and there are discussions about other housing alternatives,” Scibelli adds, “but these are all very small inroads.”
“When we talk about solutions, we need to talk about availability and pricing to make sure they are workable,” Borek emphasizes. The added challenge of limited public transportation in Berkshire County also needs to be addressed, he believes. “It’s hard for anyone without a car to accept a job if they don’t live close by,” he says, “and doubly challenging to have to drive if the weather is bad.”
“During bad weather, we don’t have the option of closing our doors, no matter what,” he acknowledges. They try to make arrangements for staff to come in early or stay through the storm to avoid driving in unsafe conditions, but in many cases, the long commute from Central to South County makes work out of reach for many employees.
“There’s no point where we’ll give up on this problem,” Borek assures. “The question is what services we can continue to offer and what wait times patients will experience going forward. We work feverishly with that in mind.”
