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This article draws on literature on nonprofit resilience to hazards to explore the impact of federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans on nonprofits' staffing, services, and financial health during the COVID-19 pandemic's first year. Through propensity score matching with survey data collected in spring 2020 and winter 2021 from the New Orleans area, linked to publicly available PPP data, nonprofits that did and did not receive a PPP loan were matched on covariates representing critical resilience capacities pre-pandemic, allowing calculation of effect sizes for short-term outcomes. Results suggest that PPP tentatively supported nonprofit liquidity in the form of reserves, but had at best mixed results in promoting service maintenance, and did not support hiring or staff retention in excess of the non-treatment group. Despite the small sample size, these preliminary findings inform how PPP may have supported short-term sustainability and help guide future federal policy to support nonprofits during crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of anthropogenic climate change, the ability of communities to reduce the heat-health burden remains a significant public health issue. This research is the first to identify cooling centers across the southeastern United States, providing a resource for stakeholders. The study evaluates the spatial relationship of these venues for heat-vulnerable populations. Using a survey and publicly available data, researchers identified 1,433 cooling centers, though significant variability exists across states and local jurisdictions. Of the nine states examined, Tennessee was the only location with a health system–supported cooling center network. Only 36 percent of the Southeast's population lives within a fifteen-minute drive of a cooling center. In most states, less than 10 percent of vulnerable populations (elderly, non-white, below poverty) are within this driveshed. Most cooling centers were found in urban environments, although heat vulnerability is not exclusively a city issue. Further research is needed to strengthen cross-agency collaboration and evaluate the effectiveness of cooling centers in areas of both high and low population density. Some states have integrated heat as part of hazard mitigation plans, but additional research is needed to explore how these plans go beyond hazard identification and strengthen vulnerable communities' ability to mitigate heat risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 and the resulting financial impacts had budget and workforce implications for organizations involved in emergency shelter provision. To address distancing and sanitation protocols as well as virus transmission and vaccination rates, shelter supplies, facility modifications, and staffing adjustments were needed. As funding and authorizations to implement public health guidance and stabilize the workforce expired, emergency managers had to determine whether to continue pandemic protocols. In order to understand these relationships, we conducted a workshop in September 2021 with 137 emergency managers, public health leaders, and other government and nonprofit practitioners from 20 states, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Canada to identify resource reallocation strategies utilized for sheltering from post-lockdown to post-vaccine periods of the COVID-19 pandemic. We applied a fiscal recovery framework to explore how these operational changes were influenced by and have implications for fiscal and policy support as well as operational adaptability. Results show that as fiscal and policy support waned, some pandemic protocols were suspended, thereby shifting and reducing human and facility resource needs. Distancing protocols benefited from improvements in masking, vaccine, and testing availability without consistent mandates, but non-congregate shelter provision was reduced as authorizations and funding expired. Modified service contracts and increased utilization of special needs registries can realign resources with health and safety needs. Based on participant responses, we developed a Retractable Stabilization Model to indicate how shelter resources can be reallocated and supported by future policy interventions to provide a range of emergency sheltering options during pandemics and overlapping hazards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building resilience to flooding is a commitment of several universities; however, student interest in flood education programs is unclear. The goals of this research are three‐fold: 1) to determine the origin of flood messaging on the Old Dominion University (ODU) campus, 2) to assess on‐campus flood awareness, and 3) to evaluate the interest in additional flood education. This study evaluates student awareness of flooding via a survey of ODU students and contextual analysis of University warning messages. Many students experienced reduced access to campus as a result of flooding and expressed an interest in additional flood information. Some students reported receiving flood‐related information through in‐class instruction or orientation‐based programming. However, the content varies in detail, and ODU could formally integrate additional resources into outreach and flood education programming. These findings could support the development of a campus wide flood awareness program at ODU and other universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]