A new senior affordable housing complex in Camden comes with primary health care on site

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Over the past year, Lettie Draine watched an apartment building go up right across the street from where she lived in the Whitman Park neighborhood of Camden.

Just a few hundred feet from the PATCO Ferry Avenue stop, the multistory building was slated to become an affordable housing complex for people 55 and older with low incomes.

Draine, 61, patiently waited for the day rental applications opened with the hopes of securing a unit.

“I prayed on it,” she said.

She was ultimately successful and became one of the first people to move into one of 47 brightly lit and modern apartments in mid-July.

“It’s so peaceful here. So secure, so clean,” Draine said.

And this apartment complex comes with unusual amenities. The first floor of the building is home to a new Virtua Health primary care office that will serve both tenants and adults in the surrounding community.

The complex, named Oliver Station, is the second of its kind in New Jersey and part of a state-led initiative to expand affordable housing options and increase access to health care by eliminating common barriers like transportation gaps and travel issues.

Residents, health providers, housing officials and local and state leaders celebrated at a grand opening event Thursday.

“For the residents of Oliver Station, high-quality primary care will be literally at their doorstep,” said Dennis Pullin, president and CEO at Virtua Health. “It will be life changing for many people.”

The project is a collaboration between Virtua Health and the Michaels Organization, a national real estate development company based in Camden.

They worked with city, county and state leaders to secure funding for the $24 million project, including special financing opportunities with the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency.

Through its Hospital Subsidy Partnership Program, the state agency has already helped open a similar health housing complex in Paterson, New Jersey, and is now working with other health systems and real estate developers to open more throughout the state.

For residents like Draine, it means that her medical needs will be immediately met as she ages.

“Virtua Health has been my doctor for over 30 years,” she said. “So for it to be right downstairs, and then with laundry, we have a gym, I’m in luxury at home. I’m loving it.”

The 5,200-square-foot primary care office on the ground floor is staffed by attending physicians, medical residents, nurses, social workers and other health providers.

Geriatrician Dr. Mithil Choksey said too many people miss out on preventative medical appointments or important follow-up visits for chronic health issues because they can’t physically make it to an office on their own or don’t have the time to travel long distances.

Putting health care services at the center of housing solves those problems, he said.

“The fact that it’s downstairs, it’s going to be a win-win for them, as well as for us,” Choksey said. “This is a fantastic concept. It should be everywhere.”

For patients and residents who may need more complex care or certain kinds of procedures or imaging, the Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital and health complex is 0.3 miles away.

Oliver Station was named after two New Jersey leaders — Rev. Thomas Clement Oliver, who briefly lived in Camden and was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and former New Jersey Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver, who died in 2023.

Camden Mayor Victor Carstarphen said he hopes this project will serve as a model for other communities, and make Camden a place where people want to live, knowing that their health care needs will be met.

“This is a place that is safe, stable, dignified, and a place residents can call home,” he said.