PB Community Impact Fund provided $8,000,000 of federal New Market Tax Credit allocation to Forrest County General Hospital (the “Sponsor”) to finance the construction of the Pinegrove Behavioral Health Center (Pine Grove). Pine Grove is a new 31,000 square-foot outpatient mental health and addiction treatment center in Hattiesburg, MS. The new medical facility includes clinical and meeting rooms, a lecture hall, and an accessory building. Additionally, Pine Grove will increase accessibility to behavioral health care by offering evening and weekend appointment options for individuals who cannot make traditional daytime appointments. 

 

The Project was needed due to the Sponsor’s prior facilities lacking the necessary space and accessibility to meet the medical needs of the surrounding low-income communities.

 

The need for improved behavioral health care within Forrest County, MS and the State of Mississippi is pronounced. According to the National Association of Mental Illness, Mississippi is one of the three lowest-ranked states regarding access to mental health services while having the highest incarceration rate for individuals with mental health and substance use disorders. Additionally, according to the 2021 Mississippi Primary Care Needs Assessment close to 150,000 citizens deal with severe mental health conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression. Further, mental health providers are only able to meet 26.28% of patient needs, and the provider-to-population ratio is 200,000:1.

 

Further evidencing the local community need, the Project received support from Wendy Bailey, Executive Director of Mississippi’s Department of Mental Health.

 

The Sponsor is a level II regional trauma center and hospital system founded in 1952. The Primary service area for Forrest County General Hospital covers residents in 19 counties across southern Mississippi. In addition to its general/surgical services, the Sponsor also operates Pine Grove Behavioral Health, which was established in 1984. Today, Pine Grove is the largest and only hospital-associated behavioral health care provider in the state. 

The project had been in the planning and development stages prior to PB Community Impact Fund providing an allocation of federal New Market Tax Credits with no clear path to move forward. During that time, the project was underfunded, and the Sponsor was unable to fully bridge the gap in the project’s capital stack with market rate debt due to lower cash flow than other comparable hospitals and having to maintain certain levels of working capital. PB Community Impact Fund’s New Market Tax Credit Allocation bridged this financing gap and enabled the project to move forward immediately.