The Pontiac Community Foundation and Kirk in the Hills, a Presbyterian Church congregation in Bloomfield Hills, have paid off $5.5 million in medical debt for Oakland County residents. The local organizations paid $29,520 to purchase the debt from New York-based nonprofit RIP Medical Debt and then forgave it. The target of the debt forgiveness was Pontiac, given the city’s large Black population and disparities in the amount of medical debt residents hold and also overall racial health disparities, he said.
