Southern Nevada CHIPs

In this episode, UNLV Urban Leadership Graduate Student, Ashley Garrido, interviews Alexandria Brown - Executive Director of Southern Nevada Community Health Improvement Programs (Southern Nevada CHIPs). Southern Nevada CHIPs is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit social service referral program that is able to link social workers with first responders, which in turn, allows them to help struggling clients by “providing the RIGHT service for the RIGHT person at the RIGHT time.”

What is COVID Conversations?

COVID-19 presented a unique set of challenges for the nonprofit industry -- funding interruptions, increased demand for services, pivot to virtual platforms, safety concerns and more have impacted some nonprofits' ability to push their missions forward. Through our podcast, COVID Conversations: An Introspective of the Impact on Nonprofits, we present interviews of individuals representing an array of nonprofit organizations. We believe the information from these organizations further provides an illuminating picture of the depth and scale of the impact of the pandemic on the nonprofit sector.

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Hello and welcome to COVID Conversations, an introspective of the impact on nonprofits. In today's episode, we will learn more about Southern Nevada Community Health Improvement Programs, also known as Southern Nevada CHIPS, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the health and happiness of our community by providing the right service to the right person at the right time. Through a number of programs, they are able to navigate clients from oversaturated service access points to access points that better fit their needs. Today we will be speaking to Alexandra Brown, the organization's executive director. Let's learn more about how COVID-19 has impacted this organization. Hello Alexandra, thank you for joining us today. May you please

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introduce yourself? Alexandria Brown, me, Anderson. I've been with the organization since its inception. I am a co-founding member of it as a non-profit. Prior to my involvement, it was a program of Las

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Vegas Fire and Rescue. Please provide a quick overview of your organization, its mission,

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and its incredible work for the community. Sure. So, as I said previously, our organization Our organization actually started out as a program of Las Vegas Fire and Rescue. When it was first created, the goal was to assist first responders who were going out on multiple calls. Their only option is to take clients to the hospital. So the program served to basically give them more options, right? They got students from UNLV, the School of Social Worker, who would work with the first responders to connect with people who called frequently to get them connected to the resources that more appropriately fit their needs so that they weren't having to call 911 all the time. So when I was introduced to the program, I was a phenomenal program and wanted to be instrumental in helping it grow and get funding for it. So that's basically how we ended up taking it from a program into an organization that now runs a multitude of programs and does a number of things in the community. Our mission is that we work to improve the health and happiness of our community by improving health care and social service navigation, providing the right service to the right person at the right time.

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And Alexandra, when did Southern Nevada CHIPS begin operating?

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The program in Las Vegas Fire and Rescue, it started in the fall of 2013. I joined the program in the winter, the beginning of the year January of 2015, and we started it as its own 501c3 in June of that same year, 2015.

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To what extent has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted your organization's services?

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These would be true for us. One was that our services were slightly inhibited. And then the second one is more services were provided than usual. And to kind of expand on that, our services that were prohibited, we were gearing up for a new crisis stabilization program that would stabilize frequent users of emergency systems who were also experiencing homelessness, provide them with transitional housing and permanent supportive housing. This was a project that we were doing in partnership with Clark County Social Services. However, right when we had set out to gear up the program, the pandemic hit and that kind of was a slow roll in getting that program off the ground. However, at the same time, our community received CHOP funding. So we were able to facilitate quite a bit of rental and utility assistance to community members who were impacted by COVID-19. And so that kind of took the forefront of our programming and we were able to assist a number of different clients that we maybe wouldn't have been able to pre-pandemic. Our other programs were much of the same. We still ran our resource center, but of course we had to make provisions for making sure that lines were limited and that we had barriers and things in place for the walk-in center.

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Has your organization experienced budget cuts, permanent layoffs, furloughs?

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So it's interesting. We have not experienced any of the following. But we, our budget actually increased, but that was because we were giving out rental assistance. While our budget increased, that was going on, everybody was trying to figure things out. And so a lot of our funders weren't paying us on time. So we went as long as three months without getting paid from some of our funders.

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How were you affected as an employee with this pandemic?

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But our agency can't get paid, so we didn't get paid on time and that included me. So that was difficult and stressful. And then for me personally, I was actually purchasing a home when it happened. So that's additional stress because I'm purchasing a home and now I might not, if you ask me for my income right now, it looks like I might not have any, even though that's not the case. So yeah, that's kind of, as an employee, that impacted me in that way. It was just a stressful time, you know, because everyone's like, looks to me like, when's our check coming? When are we getting paid? I mean, I really didn't have an answer for them when we were going to get paid just because our funders, one of our funders was just so overwhelmed.

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And as your organization continues to manage the impact of the pandemic and plans for the future, what do you believe are the top challenges and areas you will face?

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I think a lot of our previous programming was focused on just kind of that service connection with other agencies. I think as a result of the pandemic that we will get more involved in that rapid rehousing and just the housing in general. Even though we had set out to be a part of the housing solution before the pandemic. I think with the pandemic, we had a chance to experience it on an emergency scale. And the fact that we were able to get it done makes us think that moving forward is something that we can do ongoing when we're not kind of figuring it out on the fly. So to speak, I'm talking to that it'll get us more involved in housing services. I know that as we look towards moratoriums being lifted, that there is an expectation that thousands of Southern Nevada's will become homeless. So, we want to make sure that the programming and services that we're offering are there to support those community members.

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And as we know, fundraising is critically important for nonprofits. What would be the impact on your organization in this regard?

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The fundraising part is probably unknown in all of this. I think that there will be dollars to do the work to put back into the community, but actually dollars that we can fundraise for to support our organization as itself may be a bit difficult and it's hard to gauge, right? Like, we know that we're going to get money to help house people, and that's great, right? That's our purpose. We want to make sure that we're putting more money into the community, but how will our fundraising be affected? That supports the health of our organization as a whole, because we can't support our community if we're not healthy as an organization.

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Alexandra, does your organization operate on a fiscal year or a calendar year?

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On a fiscal year from July 1 to June 30.

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Does your organization anticipate major changes in your funding sources?

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So yes, so CHAPS was through Clark County Social Services. That was a program through them. And then they have another program that they're working on, more of a long-term solution for those affected by COVID. I think that it's possible that those funds, you know, may be replaced, excuse me, with different projects that will happen as a result of COVID.

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Alexandra, what major operational changes are expected now that we're entering into the second year of the pandemic?

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Operationally, one is increasing our, on our compliance side. So making sure that our facilities are conducive to what we've witnessed with the pandemic. So making sure that the cleanings are timed, making sure that we're being as safe as possible. That's probably the biggest on our operational facility side is the increase in the requirements on our facilities.

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And as we get back to a new normal, what else do you expect?

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So one of the big impacts, as I mentioned on another question, is the impact of how many individuals we're going to have in our community become homeless, right? We have transitional housing and we also do crisis work. So the pandemic in itself was a crisis, but there's a potential for the housing crisis that could happen on the other end of this pandemic. Once we run out of the assistance and the people who don't get back to work, the people who start to lose their homes, I think that we'll have way more community members that need to be served than we may have the resources for it.

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Within your organization, which programs are you most passionate about?

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I honestly think that my passion project would be the program that got me involved in all of this in the first place, and that's our second responders program. It's kind of the foundation of our agency, right? Connecting with first responders and being a resource to them for those high need patients who, you know, paramedics only have one option and that's taken to the ER. And we know that most of the time, those folks, people who utilize 911 frequently, their needs are not met through the 911 system. That's why they keep calling back. So I would probably say that the Second Responders Program is my passion project just because it was the foundation of our organization. And it's brought on so, it's grown so much and brought on so many other programs. With the second responders, we've seen that there are high instances of our clients who are those with behavioral health crises. So that brought way to the crisis response team. We've seen that another high population that we see are those experiencing homelessness. So that brought way to our crisis stabilization and Rise and Thrive programs. So, yeah, so our second responders program would be it. Because their options are limited, right? The police can talk to you, calm people down, and take you to jail, pretty much.

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Pretty much, yeah.

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Their medic can talk to you, give you a little bit of medical advice, or take you to the hospital. And then when you go to the hospital, sometimes they're so consumed with, you know, physical emergencies where it's life or death that people whose situations are still emergent but maybe not life and death in that moment, kind of get overlooked, right? So they deal with you later, but you still have a need that exists there and the ER is not always the most appropriate place to get those things mitigated. So this program allows for someone to follow up with you after that experience to say, hey, did you do what you need? What is it that you need? And how can I walk you through being assisted with what it is that you need.

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Perfect. Thank you, Alexandra. Would you like to share with our listeners how they can support this organization?

0:11:46
Yes.

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You can visit our website at www.snvchips.org or you can find us on Facebook or Instagram. Facebook and Instagram is updated pretty frequently so you can find out there things that we're doing in the community, some quick data information you can find out there, and then how you can support.

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We appreciate Alexandra with Southern Nevada CHIPS for joining us today.

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As we continue to learn how nonprofits have been impacted, we certainly wish them much success in their months and years ahead of them. Thank you for listening to COVID Conversations, an introspective of the impact on nonprofits. If you would like to get involved with Southern Nevada CHIPS, please visit their website at snvchips.org. In our next episode, you will hear from the Junior League of Las Vegas. It is sure to be another will hear from the Junior League of Las Vegas. It is sure to be another interesting conversation. Again, thank you for listening and until next time.