Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024 | 6:26 p.m.
Clark County this morning awarded funding to the Vegas Strong Resiliency Center – renamed the “Resiliency and Justice Center” – to expand its services to all survivors of violent crime.
With a unanimous vote today by commissioners, the county now enters into a new contract with Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada where no more than $1,202,328.05 of county funds will be allocated towards helping run the Resiliency and Justice Center, according to the document.
The contract term is from Oct. 1, 2023, through Sept. 30, 2024, and can be renewed for three, one-year periods including a one-month extension, according to the county.
More funding can be allocated with each contract renewal, but the total funding is not to exceed $5,336,751.28 with all renewal options accepted.
“1 October fundamentally changed how Nevada thinks about and reacts to horrific acts of violence,” said Barbara Buckley, executive director of Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada, in a press release. “We know that survivors and families of victims need comprehensive support and resources for building strength and resiliency in the aftermath of tragedy. The Resiliency & Justice Center is a national model on how to work with survivors. We’re so glad to see the center expand and to apply all we’ve learned to other survivors of violent crime in our community.”
Born after the Route 91 Harvest Festival mass shooting in 2017, the Resiliency and Justice Center became the region’s first comprehensive, multiagency collaborative to serve survivors of mass crime, according to the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada – which manages the Resiliency and Justice Center.
Clark County Fire Chief John Steinbeck, who spoke at today’s meeting, said his team was trying to provide behavioral, reunification and notification services to Route 91 shooting survivors and their families in the days following the event. His team could only do about 14 days of work, but stretched it to 20, he noted.
He wanted to make sure that survivors and family members of the victims could still get help at the end of those 20 days, which is why he appointed County Manager Kevin Schiller at the time to establish what was then the Vegas Strong Resiliency Center.
The center has since been recognized by the Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime and Congressional Crime Survivors and Justice Caucus for its mental health services, free legal help and assistance for victims accessing compensation through the Victims of Crime Program.
“I believe we’ve become a national model for having a resiliency center in place so that we’re not reactive in the recovery portion, but we’re proactive when something occurs,” Steinbeck said Tuesday morning. “Now, we have a place that’s available for those services for the individual incidents for where we have things that fall through the cracks and you’re not looking at a fire chief to try to provide those services, but actual professionals.”
Since 2017, the Resiliency and Justice Center has been helping victims of the Route 91 mass shooting but was activated for the first time in six years Dec. 6, when a rejected job applicant walked onto UNLV’s campus and shot four professors, killing three and injuring one.
Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada said the center is still assisting staff, faculty, students and families affected by last year’s university shooting. The center – working alongside UNLV, Clark County, the UNLV Foundation and Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada – also set up a fund to accept donations for families of victims who died in the incident and suffered severe physical injuries.
As of today, 338 donors have given over $107,000 to the UNLV Fund, said Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada.
Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick said on Tuesday the Resiliency and Justice Center’s response to the Dec. 6 shooting “really just solidified what (the county) had established in October (2017)” because it showed how much the community wants to help and how important a proper mental health center is needed.
The Clark County Office of Emergency Management will now be able to activate the Resiliency and Justice Center for any future mass violence events. With the new funding, the center can also serve survivors of all violent crimes throughout Nevada alongside their work with 1 October survivors.
A physical expansion is on the horizon as well, according to Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada. Design plans are still being finalized, but Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada will soon open a three-story statewide service campus dubbed the Advocacy and Justice Complex.
It will house the Resiliency and Justice Center, as well as the Legal Aid Center’s Family Justice Project – which provides representation to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking – and Guardianship Advocacy Project that prevents abuse of the elderly, people with disabilities and children facing guardianship.
“You have a contract for life,” Commissioner Jim Gibson said Tuesday morning to Buckley and Tennille Pereira, director of the Resiliency and Justice Center.
