Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Building Alliances: How rural St. Landry Parish gave its Covid vaccination effort a boost

    A pre-existing resource directory formed by a consortium of local groups addressing community health allowed St. Landry Parish to react quickly to the COVID-19 pandemic and deploy resources more effectively. The network was quickly mobilized and representatives from government agencies, the police, hospitals, and business owners met daily to coordinate care, answer questions and dispel misinformation, and eventually, ensure access to vaccines.

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  • Door-to-door vaccine outreach finds success in Lafayette's Latino community

    Members of Asociación Cultural Latino-Acadiana and the Rotary Club of Lafayette North went door-to-door in neighborhoods that are home to Spanish-speaking households to find people eligible for COVID-19 vaccinations. After compiling a list of unvaccinated residents who wanted the shot, they coordinated with the Department of Health to organize three vaccine events. The events were held within the communities, which eased transportation burdens and the inability to take time off of work. The presence of interpreters also helped ease residents’ concerns of being able to communicate with the medical providers.

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  • Antibody infusions are stemming Covid hospitalizations in Lafayette

    Hospitals in Louisiana are using a monoclonal antibody infusion treatment to help the most at-risk patients recover from Covid-19. Although this treatment comes with limitations – including a 10-day window of when it must be administered – it has shown significant overall mortality declines when used.

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  • New Orleans actively releases videos of police shootings. Is it paying off with trust?

    Once viewed as one of the nation's most brutal and corrupt police departments, New Orleans Police Department has earned steadily improving public support with a host of reforms. One reform that it took voluntarily, and in contrast with common practice in Louisiana, is to quickly release body-camera videos of police shootings and other uses of force. Though its effect is hard to untangle from other initiatives, video releases have become routine. In one case, a video prompted an official apology after proving rubber bullets were used against protesters. This helped lead to new restrictions on crowd control.

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  • Speaking their language: How NOLA advocates connected Spanish speakers to healthcare during the pandemic

    The coronavirus pandemic has caused many healthcare practice to move to a virtual space, but for Spanish-speaking communities, telehealth wasn't a solution on its own. In New Orleans, interpreters, doctors, and patients are working together to coordinate care at one clinic, while another clinic has used personalized text messages in Spanish to stay in communicaiton with patients.

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  • Hanging on: Covid gave Louisiana's addiction patients life-saving drug treatment by phone

    When the coronavirus pandemic caused organizations and businesses to shut their doors, some medical practices, such as facilities that treat addiction, found relief by moving to telehealth services. In Lousiana, "emergency changes to federal and state telehealth regulations" allowed patients to seek therapy and other services via telephone and video, which helped them avoid exposure to the virus, yet still access the care they needed.

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  • Calling home: Sheltering in hotels to escape coronavirus, Acadiana's homeless got back on their feet

    In southwestern Louisiana, the Acadiana Regional Coalition on Homelessness and Housing wrangled 19 hotels into a makeshift network during the pandemic to house people experiencing homelessness. With help from Beacon Community Connections' counselors, the 456 people who entered the program found the stability and services they needed to connect with government benefits and, in some cases, find jobs. The program's Housing First approach, to admit the chronically unhoused without preconditions like sobriety, creates disciplinary challenges but put many on a path to a better life.

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  • Calls to action: How 211 became an instant link to health and social services during the pandemic

    In Louisiana, where many communities face barriers to health care access, the implementation of a 211 hotline during the coronavirus pandemic has helped residents access the information they need to make informed decisions. The system has received hundreds of thousands of calls and because of this, the live specialists have also been able to collect meaningful data that helps the state to assess where there are areas of unmet needs.

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  • How Louisiana cities are using the CARES Act to save small businesses, keep people in homes

    The Cares Act is a federal program providing $46.6 million dollars of emergency aid which cities in Louisiana are spending on a combination of a mortgage and rent relief or on the needs of small businesses. For most cities throughout the state, the first priority is keeping residents in their homes as the stay on evictions approaches, at which point landlords will expect rent as well as backpay. Louisiana faces the triple threat of a pandemic, the economic fallout from it, and a series of tornados. Keeping people in their homes has been the foremost priority to stop the spread of the virus.

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  • Louisiana cities are doing what they can to both save small businesses and keep people in their homes

    Several large cities in Lousiana used federal funds for small businesses and housing. Cities like Monroe, Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans balanced the needs of small businesses with the needs of families who were provided rent and mortgage assistance. Fayette, however, is opting to focus almost entirely on small businesses. Most cities are prioritizing the need to keep residents in their homes to stop the spread of coronavirus.

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