HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (WSAV) - Novant Health, The owner of Hilton Head Hospital and Coastal Carolina Hospital giving $1 million towards an affordable housing solution. For the Coastal Community Development Corporation (CCDC), those bases are full of money and possibility. "It's a game changer for us on every level. as a parent, as an employer, as an employee. It touches all those different bases," said Alan Wolf of CCDC. Novant Health's donation will go toward the non-profit. CCDC buys units in Hilton Head, Bluffton and all of Beaufort County to offer rents that serve a wide range of our workforce based on household income for workers there. "We know that Hilton Head was a great starting point, but this was always meant to be solve for both sides of the bridge, have less cars on the road, driving more people being able to live where they work," said Wolf. Their goal, to keep rents between $1100 and $2000. A reasonable number for folks who work in health care, as teachers, firefighters or food and beverage, and want to live in the Lowcountry "This donation, along with the support of the Community Foundation of the Lowcountry and the Beaufort-Jasper Housing Trust," explains Wolf. "We are able to go to buy 13 more units now, so that'll take us right up to 25 units and then next month with the remaining funds that we had donated, there'll be another ten units." "We really love that idea of Seeing corporations of private citizens of individuals come together to try to help solve really complex problems like affordable housing," says Jason Bernd, Senior Vice President for Novant Health South Carolina. It's a relationship that can pay dividends for both the hospital group and the entire community. Nurses and techs can be hard to find and keep. Even though the units are not dedicated to Novant employees. It still gives them an opportunity for a place to live close to work. "Nursing has an annual average turnover rate of 20% per year," explains Bernd. "So that means you're always recruiting nurses. And if we have 1000 nurses that we employ in South Carolina, then you're looking for 200 every year. So, this is always a kind of a constant recruitment and constant opportunity to find team members and attract them to these locations." "We want to help support team members who can stay," continued Bernd. "Whether it's teachers, whether it's firefighters or whether that's nurses so they can really work and live in those same communities. And we think that that creates long-term relationships." The donation will help CCDC get up to 40 properties in this entire area, and Novant is one of the businesses that will need it most. They've already got plans for a new hospital facility out in Bluffton to go with the three current hospital facilities they already own. To learn more about CCDC: https://ccdc-sc.org/home