Solutions and Struggle: Native American tribes receive federal COVID-19 relief |

In Texas, smaller towns are looking to one another for ideas to prevent dangerous encounters with flash flooding. Travis County is one such place, using multi-layered approaches to prevent drivers from crossing flooded areas and requiring deputies to carry water rescue kits in their cars. After the death of one woman, the town of Llano is considering new approaches, like more visible barricades.

The city of Tucson and Pima County are using a network of cooling centers, repurposed shipping containers and street outreach teams to protect unhoused residents and people living in substandard housing from deadly summer heat. The coordinated response, which includes trauma-informed staff training, heat-relief kit distribution, and an annual planning summit, is helping reduce heat-related deaths in the region.

Several California cities have adopted a new approach to clearing homeless encampments that prioritizes housing over displacement, called Inside Safe. The model involves spending 6-8 weeks getting to know each encampment resident individually, matching them with appropriate housing, moving people gradually and minimizing police involvement. Los Angeles's Inside Safe program has moved 5,200 people indoors over three years, with approximately 25% securing permanent housing.

The Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas and its subsidiary Building Health act as safety nets for uninsured people experiencing homelessness by expanding the definition of healthcare to also include housing, serving about 85,000 people a year. By providing wraparound care and services from help finding housing to legal assistance and education, the groups’ combined efforts helped shrink the rate of uninsured, unhoused people from 16% in 2020 to about 12% now.

The Healthy Opportunities pilot program uses Medicaid dollars to address non-medical needs like food access, transportation and housing. Since launching in 2022, the program has assisted nearly 30,000 people in 33 of the state’s 100 counties. Research shows the state is spending about $85 less in medical costs per month for each participant, and lawmakers are currently weighing whether to expand the program.

A new licensing system that registers landlords and requires safety checks is ensuring tenants have safe places to live that are up to code and meet basic safety standards like having working smoke detectors or being free of mold. So far about 4,000 single-unit rental properties have been inspected and signed off on as safe places to live and the city has issued 1,578 violations to buildings that don’t meet the safety criteria.

In response to managing the homeless crisis, several Safe Rest Villages have emerged throughout the city. These are small, individual units on city-owned land, separate from nearby neighborhoods. There are currently seven active Safe Rest Villages in the city and they have created 350 transitional housing opportunities for the local homeless population.

A free COVID-19 vaccination clinic has led to the city of Boston having the lowest COVID case rates in the country, as well as a significantly narrowed racial gap in vaccinations. After the clinic’s success, local healthcare professionals and leaders began working together to apply the strategies to other health disparities including HIV, Mpox, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.

With help from Arizona State University, Red Rock Elementary school built DIY air-filtering devices called Corsi-Rosenthal Boxes for each classroom. The boxes are made up of air filters, cardboard, and a box fan and are helping to improve the air quality.

Students at Mesilla Valley Leadership Academy are taking action to protect themselves and others against COVID-19 and other allergens by building homemade air filters, called Corsi-Rosenthal boxes. The boxes are relatively inexpensive when compared to standard HEPA air filters and help reduce COVID-19 virus transmission and improve air quality. So far, students at the Academy have built nine box filters to help push clean air into their classrooms.