Northern Nevada HOPES is joining communities across the country to celebrate National Health Center Week 2024 August 4–10. Across the nation, nearly 1,500 Community Health Centers (CHCs) provide integrated preventive and primary care services to 31.5 million people. Here in northern Nevada and the Sierra, Northern Nevada HOPES (HOPES) cares for over 15,000 patients annually, with the capacity to serve 28,000 in the next three years since expanding in April 2024.
For over a quarter century, HOPES has been on the frontline of community health, caring for those with the fewest resources and options. From our early days as a small HIV/AIDS clinic to the trusted community health center we are today, HOPES continues to serve northern Nevada’s most marginalized, overlooked, and underserved with kindness and compassion.
Nationwide, nearly 1,500 health centers are the healthcare home to: one in 5 uninsured people, one in 3 people living in poverty, one in 7 rural residents, nearly 9 million children and 400,000 veterans. In 2023, 56% of HOPES patients lived at or below 200% of the federal poverty level and 10% were experiencing homelessness.
Since opening in 1997 to care for individuals living with HIV/AIDS, HOPES has delivered care through a patient-centered approach, providing integrated, onsite comprehensive services that are affordable and accessible. Services provided to HOPES’ patients include: primary medical care for newborns through seniors, behavioral health care, substance use treatment, onsite labs, onsite pharmacy, nutrition, chronic disease prevention, infectious disease care and prevention, women’s health, case management, peer support specialists and more.
HOPES has a history of answering the call for our community’s most pressing needs and finding innovative solutions to tackle challenges and improve health outcomes from medical care, to substance use treatment, housing and homelessness, and behavioral health care.
Nevada ranks lowest among all states for mental health. To address and improve the mental health in our state, HOPES offers outpatient therapy to individuals ages three and up, and an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP), which we opened in 2022 as the first of its kind in northern Nevada to provide in-depth and comprehensive mental healthcare to those with Medicaid or no insurance.
As the opioid epidemic spreads throughout our nation and in northern Nevada, HOPES is taking the lead in recovery and harm reduction, offering Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) and other recovery options and support. Our MAT program, comprised of 17 staff, has become the gold standard for effective treatment in our region. We have built a team of professionals with a broad range of training and experience who provide comprehensive and individualized treatment to our patients.
Our MAT program uses medication to support recovery for individuals struggling with alcohol or opioid use disorder and offers behavioral health integration to all interested program participants. Our harm reduction approach means we meet patients where they are in their recovery journey and develop a team-based treatment plan based on each patient’s specific goals.
Change Point, a program at HOPES, offers free fentanyl test strips, clean syringe exchange and free naloxone kits, among other services to reduce overdoses, reduce the spread of infectious diseases, and reduce hospital admissions.
As our region continues to face housing shortages and increases in the number of individuals experiencing homelessness, HOPES opened Hope Springs in 2021, our area’s first bridge housing community. Hope Springs provides people experiencing homelessness with shelter and a safe place to rebuild their lives with an intensive six-month program. We focus on increasing stability through mental health support, lifestyle changes, peer-led recovery meetings, and life skills groups. Over 60 residents have had the opportunity to regain their health, gain new skills, get a job, and get back into permanent housing. To our knowledge, we are the first and only community health center operating a transitional housing community in the country.
Nevada ranks 45th in the U.S. for active physicians per 100,000 people, according to the American Medical Association. HOPES is committed to improving this ranking and increasing access to primary medical care by opening The Jerry Smith Community Wellness Center on East 4th St. The new clinic is in the heart of one of northern Nevada’s most disenfranchised communities, adjacent to the Washoe County-operated Cares Campus (our community’s homeless shelter) and across from Hope Springs. The clinic expands HOPES’ comprehensive medical and behavioral health care services, including Medication Assisted Treatment, the Intensive Outpatient Program, and an on-site pharmacy. The new health center offers a walk-in clinic, open to all adults in the community to care for acute medical needs.
We are grateful for bipartisan support of Senator Cortez Masto, Senator Jacky Rosen, Congressman Mark Amodei, Governor Lombardo and the State of Nevada, Washoe County, and The City of Sparks. These partners have shown leadership in supporting HOPES’ efforts to expand care to the most vulnerable members of our community and advocate for community health centers in Nevada.
The health center’s mission is crucial today because access to basic care remains a challenge to over 100 million people across the country. As a critical part of the U.S. healthcare system, CHCs collaborate with hospitals, local and state governments, social, health, and business organizations to improve health outcomes and reduce healthcare costs.
