Project RESTORE (Richmond Empowerment to Support Our Recovery Effort) - The Vernon J. Harris East End Community Health Center, DBA as Vernon J. Harris Medical & Dental Center and Capital Area Health Network (CAHN), requests a $1,000,000 DRGP - SA grant to fund Project RESTORE (Richmond Empowerment to Support Our Recovery Effort). This innovative initiative will help the most-impacted and vulnerable residents of the City of Richmond recover from Hurricane Florence by implementing a suite of comprehensive services. This will include developing a comprehensive plan of evidence-based mental health and substance abuse treatment services; screening and assessing clients for the presence of mental and substance use disorders; providing evidence-based treatment for substance abuse disorder/opioid use disorder (SUD/OUD) and severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI); providing recovery-support services; developing and implementing a workforce development training plan; and establishing relationships. CAHN will utilize third party and other revenue realized from provision of services to the extent possible and use SAMHSA grant funds only for services to individuals who are not covered by public or commercial health insurance programs, individuals for whom coverage has been formally determined to be unaffordable, or for services that are not sufficiently covered by an individual’s health insurance plan. The proposed project will also be articulated with the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak response; that means CAHN will prepare recovery and resilience services that may be adapted to COVID-19 as needed, and in particular for residents who are affected by Hurricane Florence and COVID-19. CAHN is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), and the target area corresponds to CAHN’s service area, which includes the City of Richmond, as well as parts of the surrounding Henrico, Chesterfield and Hanover Counties. Most CAHN patients, however, live in the inner-city East End neighborhood of Richmond, the heart of CAHN’s service area, and it will be the focus of project activities; the East End, an area that has historically experienced environmental racism and has been harmed disproportionately by Hurricane Florence and is at significant risk from COVID-19. The East End is severely economically disadvantaged and largely African American, and many persons have inadequate access to health care. The target population includes individuals and families who have been harmed or seriously affected by Hurricane Florence. About one in five residents are in poverty in the core target zip codes, compared to just one in ten in Henrico County or the Commonwealth. OUD, related to Hurricane Florence trauma, is also prevalent and must be addressed. According to data from the Virginia Department of Public Health, all parts of the project target area have seen a growing trend in OUD deaths. In Chesterfield County, there were 87 deaths in 2018, for a rate of 25.0 per 100,000 residents, while in Henrico County, there were 57 deaths, for a rate of 17.3 per 100,000 residents. In the City of Richmond in 2018, there were 54 overdoses per 10,000 ER visits: compared to 42.1 in Virginia as a whole. CAHN has seven Health Centers, including its main site in the East End.
