MLKCH Secures $6.7 Million in Investments

South Los Angeles hasn't historically been top-of-mind when it comes to investment opportunities. The more than $6 million of investments made through the federal New Markets Tax Credit Program (NMTC) for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital (MLKCH), are an important signal of change to that thinking. Investors include Citi, Chase, Beyond The Bottom Line Group & Aszkenazy Development, Stonehenge Capital, and U.S. Bank.

MLKCH uses the funds to support expansion of healthcare services, taking direct aim at areas of high patient need. Capital projects completed with NMTC funding allow the hospital to offer care for conditions before they progress, putting patients back on the path to health.

Kyle Walton, president of Classic Lake Consulting & Investments

Creating a healthier community requires strong local leadership that inspires outside investment. New Markets Tax Credit allocations are an innovative addition to traditional philanthropy as a means of attracting dollars into communities like South Los Angeles.

Kyle Walton
president of Classic Lake Consulting & Investments

 

 

Created to bring capital investments into low-income communities around the United States, the federal New Markets Tax Credit Program offers incentives to businesses that finance projects aimed at generating local jobs and meeting needs in distressed communities like South Los Angeles. Two of the investors, Beyond The Bottom Line Group and Aszkenazy Development, are based in southern California.

MLKCH has begun to create permanent jobs related to the expansion of healthcare services supported by these investments. In South Los Angeles, where nearly a third of the population lives in poverty and more than half of adults are unemployed ("Key Indicators of Health," LA County Department of Public Health, January 2017), adding living-wage jobs also supports population health.

Kyle Walton, president of Classic Lake Consulting & Investments in Los Angeles and a member of the MLK Community Health Foundation's board of directors, was a driving force behind the hospital's success in securing the allocations.

"Creating a healthier community requires strong local leadership that inspires outside investment," said Kyle. "New Markets Tax Credit allocations are an innovative addition to traditional philanthropy as a means of attracting dollars into communities like South Los Angeles."

"Leveraging this funding option is one more example of the skilled and determined leadership we have here at MLKCH," said Dyan Sublett, President of the MLK Community Health Foundation. "Innovation is part of our organization's DNA. We're grateful to Kyle, as well as to all of the investors using NMTC to bring new assets and resources to our community."

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