Feds award $1 billion to renovate health centers

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded nearly $1 billion to 1,292 health centers for construction and renovation projects.

Health Resources and Services Administration-funded health centers will use the money to construct new facilities, modernize existing infrastructure, and cover other COVID-19-related capital needs. The funds were sourced through the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act and awarded through the Health Resources and Services Administration.

HHS said the money is meant to strengthen the country’s overall healthcare infrastructure and promote health equity among medically underserved communities. Eligible health centers will renovate and expand existing facilities to enhance response to pandemics, and buy new state-of-the-art equipment, including telehealth technology, mobile medical vans, and freezers, to store vaccines.

The awards, amounting to about $954 million, provide up to seven figures to individual HRSA-funded organizations.

New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.