Why Hospitals Are Getting Into The Real Estate Business

Michael Doody remembers some things about his Columbus, Ohio neighborhood in the 1990s:

“Gunshots, helicopters, thefts, smashed out windows, burglaries, robberies, assaults and murders.”

In addition to the crime, roughly 50 percent of the children were living in poverty in this area, known as Southern Orchards.

During the mid-20th century, construction of an interstate through the middle of the community separated many of the neighborhood’s majority black residents from job opportunities in downtown Columbus.

But things began to change in 2008. Nationwide Children’s Hospital, located in Southern Orchards, began to invest in the neighborhood’s homes.

“Most were in such bad repair,” says Doody, a 62-year-old fraud investigator. “But they came in and they worked within those homes and they...