| Name | Stacy |
|---|---|
| Last Name | Johnson |
| Home Address | 809 South Willow Street Chattanooga, TN 37404, Tennessee 37404 United States |
| Organization Name | La Paz de Dios, Inc. DBA La Paz Chattanooga |
| Describe Your Role In The Organization | I am the Executive Director of La Paz Chattanooga. |
| Organization Address | 809 South Willow Street Chattanooga, Tennessee 37404 United States |
| Website | https://www.lapazchattanooga.org |
| Best Phone Number To Reach You | 4233144813 |
| Alternate Phone Number | 4236248414 |
| Email Address | sjohnson@lapazchattanooga.org |
| Alternate Email Address | sjohnson@lapazchattanooga.org |
| Please Describe Your Project In Detail | The Hispanic/Latino population in the city of Chattanooga and the surrounding region, has experienced continuous growth and influence over the last several years. There are currently an estimated 30,000 Latinos in the area. Seventeen percent (17%) of students enrolled in the Hamilton County school system are Latino with a large portion residing within the city limits. La Paz Chattanooga is the leading Hispanic and Latino organization in Southeast Tennessee. The mission of La Paz is to empower Chattanooga’s Latino population through advocacy, education and inclusion. Every program and service is planned and implemented as a reflection of our mission, and is specifically tailored to the languages, cultures, and backgrounds of the diverse Latino population - a community that has been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 crisis. Since March 2020, La Paz Chattanooga has been on the frontline in support of the at-risk, vulnerable, and underserved Latino communities within the Southeast Tennessee region, in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The investment from One Chattanooga Relief & Recovery will be used to address negative economic impacts caused by the public health emergency by providing homeless prevention to include case management services, housing navigation and financial support; educational training and support and wealth building programming for workers, households and small businesses as well as small business/entrepreneur technical support and navigation. We will continue our Covid-19 mitigation efforts to include educational outreach and communications campaigns, physical, mental and behavioral healthcare referrals, as well as mental health education, guidance and support. We will also support partnering agencies to expand access to broadband internet and reduce violent crime. The first step in our relief and recovery efforts is to stabilize households. Due to a loss of employment and/or income, La Paz Chattanooga has seen a dramatic increase in the need for economic support. In response, we established a Latinx Relief Fund in May of 2020 to provide direct financial assistance to families in need - targeting Latino households who were unemployed, unable to work and could not access local and federal assistance. Since the pandemic began, La Paz has provided financial assistance to 450 families totaling more than $250,000. This project led the organization to apply for federal funding to continue supporting families through homeless prevention services. La Paz Chattanooga has worked with an additional 193 people on the verge of homelessness in the last seven months and has re-housed eight families. Homelessness is a national concern and for many municipalities a local crisis. However, Latinos are likely to be undercounted in homeless counts; they are more likely to live outside of traditional homeless spaces, rely heavily on social networks, and use public services at lower rates than other racial/ethnic groups. Latinos are also more likely to live in overcrowded households, a characteristic not captured in official homeless counts but one that likely contributes to unstable housing. Compared to other racial/ethnic groups, Latinos are least likely to be engaged with homeless services. According to the Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition, there were less than 1% of Latinos in the area-wide homeless system before La Paz Chattanooga implemented its homeless prevention program in April of 2021. Since then, Latino participation in the local homelessness system has increased to over 11%. There are significant resource and knowledge gaps that need to be addressed to assure that Latinos experiencing a housing crisis are served through our current safety net and homeless service systems. Language and cultural barriers continue to impact service engagement. The One Chattanooga investment will allow La Paz to continue to provide its homeless prevention program, which includes case management, housing navigation, financial support, and information and referral. Once stabilized, La Paz will provide ongoing support and navigation as well as engage workers, households and small businesses in educational programming to include workforce development as well as financial health and wealth building curriculums. Workforce Development will include four key areas of focus: English language (ESL), HiSET (high school diploma equivalency), financial literacy, and computer education. This combination is designed to holistically target the areas where resources for Latinos in our community are significantly lacking or absent all together. While most of our clients are currently employed, many lack English proficiency to excel in their current jobs or to pursue better wages elsewhere making this an imperative step in cultivating a thriving Latino ecosystem. Nationwide, nearly one-in-10 working-age U.S. adults are considered to have limited English proficiency and they earn 25-40% less than their English-proficient counterparts. Many individuals who integrate into the workforce do so in manual labor or factory work due to a lack of proper education or high school diplomas. Learning the English language and earning a high school equivalency diploma increases an individual’s earning potential by 37.5%, with an average net gain of $700,000 over the course of their lifetime. The Financial Health and Wealth Building curriculums will include personal financial management, banking, credit building/repair, insurance and estate planning. We will educate Latino workers about the U.S. tax system, their tax rights and their responsibilities through workshops and a comprehensive media campaign. We will assist Latino families in achieving the dream of homeownership by offering financial education, counseling, and access to financing. In supporting families, we will also provide information to help homeowners avoid foreclosure in difficult economic times. We will teach basic administrative knowledge for starting a new business, or growing an existing small enterprise, with a focus on financial education, accounting, licensing permits, and contracts. As our area’s Latino population continues to grow, so will the need for services tailored to the languages and cultures of the population. In working towards our mission to provide Latinos with equitable access to resources and opportunities, this project will not only fill several service gaps that have existed in our community for a long time, but will also help to create the ecosystem to cultivate Latino generational wealth. Covid-19 mitigation efforts will continue and expand through the One Chattanooga investment, with health education workshops and training, mental health support and guidance as well as physical, mental and behavioral health information and referral. As the trusted source within the Latino community, it is imperative that La Paz Chattanooga continue to strategically communicate important pandemic information and mitigation efforts to the Spanish speaking community. With over 80% of positive cases occurring in the Latino community at one point during the height of the pandemic, the City of Chattanooga and Hamilton County enlisted the help of La Paz to mitigate the spread of the virus as well as provide technical assistance and communication support. Because of the tremendous need for up to date information in Spanish, access to resources with bilingual support, and the lack of a local Spanish news source, La Paz Chattanooga filled the gap and reached over 80,000 people in the city of Chattanooga, Hamilton County as well as the surrounding region through marketing and communications campaigns and educational outreach efforts. Health care providers utilized the cultural experience and language support of the La Paz staff to increase access to testing and reliability of contact tracing. The collaborative resulted in a reduction of positive cases within the Latino and Hispanic communities. Moving forward, La Paz will provide accessibility of Covid-19 testing and vaccinations. We will host Covid-19 information sessions and vaccination clinics as well as provide ongoing information and education sessions. We will share important mandates and provide appropriate healthcare referrals. A sense of belonging is crucial to our life satisfaction, happiness, mental and physical health and even longevity. It gives us a sense of purpose and meaning. Research has shown that loss of belonging has been associated with stress, illness, and decreased wellbeing and depression. La Paz Chattanooga will continue its culturally and linguistically appropriate communications campaigns and community building efforts to mitigate the negative impacts caused by the pandemic within the Latino community. |
| Please explain how your project meets the requirements of the American Rescue Plan | Our project will respond to the impacts of COVID-19 by supporting public health expenditures to include COVID-19 mitigation efforts, assisting community members with medical expenses; addressing negative economic impacts caused by the public health emergency, including economic harms to workers, households, and small businesses; expanding access to broadband internet for individuals and families; working to reduce violent crime by working with the Chattanooga Police Department on their community policing efforts; and providing mental health support and referral services for individuals experiencing trauma exacerbated by the pandemic. One Chattanooga Relief and Recovery funding will allow La Paz Chattanooga to continue and strengthen its COVID-19 mitigation efforts to include health education and outreach, physical, mental and behavioral healthcare referrals, medical expense assistance, and prevention and vaccination communication campaigns. We will address negative economic impacts caused by the public health emergency, assisting workers, households and small businesses. La Paz will prevent homelessness by providing case management, housing navigation and financial support. We will work to increase the earning potential for Latino community by providing educational programming for workers, households and small businesses to include workforce development as well as financial health and wealth building curriculums. La Paz will also expand access and availability to broadband internet in partnership with the Enterprise Center and work to reduce and respond to violent crime by collaborating with the Chattanooga Police Department in their community policing and educational outreach efforts. La Paz will increase access to mental health services for individuals experiencing trauma exacerbated by the pandemic to include mental/behavioral health information and referral as well as provide mental health support groups. |
| Where would your project take place? | City of Chattanooga - La Paz Chattanooga |
| How much will your project cost in total? | 1350000 |
| Do you have any matching funding sources from other local governments, private entities, non-profits, or philanthropic entities for your project? | Yes |
| Please describe the source and list amounts of any other funding. | We currently have ESG funding (award $210,000) and this will cross over some of the project timeline ensuring no service gaps. We will also fundraise to enlist local and national funders to take part in this project. |
| What portion of the project are you asking the city to fund? | The budget submitted is the city ask budget. Additional dollars will be used to expand and or enhance programming. |
| If funded, when would your project start? | March 1, 2022 |
| How long would your project take to complete? | 3 years |
| What milestones would you use to measure your project’s progress? | Through the project, La Paz will decrease the negative impact of Covid-19 by preventing homelessness within the Latino community. We will provide homeless prevention services to 1000 Latino households. These services will include in-depth case management to help individuals find housing and work with landlords to prevent eviction and resolve landlord/tenant issues. La Paz will also provide direct financial assistance or emergency shelter services to 300 households for hotel, rent or utility payments to help stabilize families. Finally, we will connect families to other social services by providing over 2000 referrals for food, clothing and other resources to help lessen their financial burdens. Emergency shelter services are an increasing need as more families are facing long-term financial hardship. La Paz will also provide emergency shelter services to Latino families by paying for temporary hotel stays. This solution will also help those facing housing insecurity due to Covid-19. Multi-family units are experiencing increased challenges as they navigate Covid-19. La Paz has seen an increase in the number of homeless cases tied to a positive Covid-19 diagnosis, specifically for people living in multi-family units. Our homeless prevention efforts will educate renters on tenant rights, including information regarding illegal rent increases and evictions, and how to have evictions removed from rental records. Bilingual information about services is essential and more attention should be paid to culturally relevant interventions and the identification of best practices. Prevention efforts for Latinos will benefit from focusing on economic stability and housing affordability. Through our educational outreach, workforce development and health and wealth building programs, we will increase earning potential and spark generational change within our community by equipping over 500 Latino workers, households or businesses with the tools they need to thrive in our community. We will provide the following wealth building opportunities on a quarterly basis. Workforce Development (English language (ESL), HiSET in Spanish (high school diploma equivalency), financial literacy, and computer education) Economic Integration (U.S. tax system, tax rights and responsibilities as well as access to free basic tax return preparation from IRS certified staff) Homeownership (personal financial management, estate planning, banking, credit building and repair, Insurance, debt management as well as financial counseling and access to financing) Entrepreneurship (basic administrative knowledge for starting a new business, or growing an existing small enterprise, financial education, accounting, taxes, licensing permits, insurance, contracts and marketing) Because of the trust we have built within the Latino community, it is imperative that La Paz Chattanooga continue Covid-19 mitigation efforts. We will improve the emotional, behavioral and mental health within the local Latino population by community building and providing educational outreach and communications campaigns. Our efforts will reach over 50% of Chattanooga’s Latino population. For those experiencing trauma exacerbated by the pandemic, La Paz will provide more than 50 community building activities and mental health support group sessions and engage at least 1000 households. La Paz Chattanooga will also ensure the Latino community is equitably included in system-wide programs and services, by promoting an understanding of the presence, contributions and challenges faced by Latino workers, households and small businesses in the region. We will advocate for policies in the public and private sectors that discriminate against Latino workers, households or small businesses and we will strive for equitable accessibility. For example: Advocating for Latino households early in the pandemic, we were able to increase access and availability to the United Way of Greater Chattanooga Restore Hope fund by adjusting eligibility requirements. La Paz Chattanooga was also able to increase accessibility to homeless prevention services by implementing an in house program as well as working with homeless providers on language and access requirements (see Buy In section below) |
| How would you ensure accountability and transparency throughout the project lifecycle? | Stacy Johnson is the Executive Director of La Paz Chattanooga will oversee the project with the help of her executive team and external financial and federal grant fund management experts. The La Paz Chattanooga board of directors has financial oversight and provides financial accountability for the organization in collaboration with the executive team. La Paz Chattanooga, under Stacy Johnson’s leadership, has been awarded funding from The City of Chattanooga, The Governor’s Office of Children’s Care Coordination (GOCCC), The United States Department of Justice - Office of Violence Against Women, as well as TN CARES funding for Covid-19 response in 2020. La Paz has met all expectations to include mandatory training and reporting, and completed and/or exceeded outcome measures for all awarded projects. La Paz will utilize the local Homeless Management Information System, Service Point database as well as a specific database built for the organization to track programs and services. The databases are designated to record and store client-level data, including the characteristic and service needs of the homeless and at-risk of homelessness communities. Utilization of the HMIS database will help provide a consistent and accurate snapshot of populations served through various programs. Agencies utilizing the HMIS database are expected to comply with data quality standards. La Paz will participate in all reporting requirements to include qualitative and quantitative outcome measurements and funds expensed. Access to photographs/videos and other programs/services such as workshops and events will be available upon request. |
| If successful, how would your project benefit the community? | The U.S. Hispanic population reached a record 60.6 million in 2019, up 930,000 over the previous year and up from 50.7 million in 2010. According to new U.S. Census Bureau population projections, the Hispanic population is expected to reach about 106 million in 2050, about double what it is today. Economic equity is not a zero-sum game. If Latinos were fully and equitably included in the U.S. (and local) economy, gains for the broader society could be tremendous. Closing gaps for gender as well as all races and ethnicities in employment, education and earnings could generate annual GDP gains in the trillions of dollars. Unfortunately, existing gaps are quite wide. The pandemic highlighted many of these gaps and inequities locally as well as nationwide. Highly educated workers were much more likely to work from home and less likely to have lost their jobs. Latinos have the lowest educational-attainment levels of any race or ethnicity in the U.S.; they were also the least likely to telecommute, and many risked their health and that of their families by continuing to work on-site. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Latino families had just $38,000 of median wealth. This amounts to 21 cents for every dollar of white family wealth. Latino income, GDP and consumption growth were extraordinarily strong prior to the pandemic, yet they weren’t strong enough to put a significant dent in the wealth gap. This matters, because families with little to no wealth are much more likely to suffer financial, food and housing insecurity and be unable to withstand unexpected negative events, like losing a job or experiencing a health scare. These circumstances materialized for many families during the Covid-19-induced recession. Millions lost their jobs, and Latinos had the highest unemployment rate, which reached 18.9% in April 2020. Improving wealth outcomes is critical for resiliency, prosperity and self-actualization. Most importantly, greater wealth could provide Latinos the power to make choices that many people take for granted, such as acquiring education. A prosperous Latino economy contributes to a thriving Chattanoogan economy. Far from being a zero-sum game, equity can lead to broad economic prosperity. |
| How will you attract community buy-in for your project? | Since our inception in 2004, La Paz has worked to cultivate a thriving Latino ecosystem by building trust within our diverse Latino communities as well as organizations to include the city of Chattanooga, local churches, clinics and nonprofit agencies. The mission of La Paz is to empower the Latino community through advocacy, education and inclusion. Every program and service is planned and implemented as a reflection of our mission, and is specifically tailored to the languages, cultures, and backgrounds of the diverse Latino market. The La Paz staff is bilingual and multicultural and our programs and services are advertised in Spanish through all of our social media platforms as well as through partner agencies, local radio and grassroots organizing and outreach. Positive word of mouth referrals is also a key way we create buy in. La Paz takes great pride in community listening as a method to create programs and services. As part of our recent strategic planning process, we surveyed community members that have accessed our programs and services. Three of the top needs/services requested by the participants match the One Chattanooga investment strategy; 1) small business support 2) better job/employment and 3) mental health support. Ninety-three percent (93%) of respondents said they didn’t know where else to go OR they would have nowhere else to go if La Paz was not here. A good example of the way in which we attract community buy-in: Latinos appear less likely than other populations to engage with the homeless service system, and to self-identify as homeless. Therefore, efforts to engage Latinos in homeless services must look toward trusted local institutions (La Paz). To demonstrate the buy-in for our homelessness prevention program, we’ve gathered numbers from the Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition (CRHC). You can see numbers (below) of Latinos utilizing homeless services in our community before La Paz implemented its program, once it started and after several months of running the program. La Paz Chattanooga was not part of the program. 4/1/2020-4/30/2020 Non Hispanic/Latino: 547 Hispanic/Latino: 4 Percentage of those presenting for services: 0.7% La Paz started its Homeless Prevention Program in April of 2021. 4/1/2021-4/30/2021 Non Hispanic/Latino: 736 Hispanic/Latino: 13 Percentage of those presenting for services: 1.7% La Paz continues to run the Homeless Prevention Program to include information and referral to other providers (as seen here). 11/1/2021-11/30/2021 Non Hispanic/Latino: 2858 Hispanic/Latino: 326 Percentage of those presenting for services: 11.4% La Paz Chattanooga also helps build buy-in system wide. According to CRHC, La Paz is not only serving the vast majority of this underserved population, but the number of persons presenting to other providers from this population is growing as well, now that our organization has been participating. “I think this is directly related to the work you are doing,” Mike Smith, Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition. |
| Name | Marco Perez |
| Contact Information | mperez@lapazchattanooga.org |
| Name | Vivian Lozano |
| Contact Information | vlozano@lapazchattanooga.org |
| Is there anything else you would like us to know about your project? | Sources https://latino.ucla.edu//www/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Stemming-the-Rise-of-Latino-Homelessness-2-1.pdf https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/working-papers/2021/11/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/investing-in-english-skills-the-limited-english-proficient-workforce-in-u-s-metropolitan-areas/ https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=limited%20english%20profiency%20&g=0400000US47_1600000US4714000&tid=ACSDT5YSPT2015.B16002 |