David Marlon, founder and CEO of Vegas Stronger

Vegas Stronger:

Transforming Lives and Restoring Hope

BY DEBBIE HALL / PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF VEGAS STRONGER

Beyond the glitter of the neon lights, incredible gourmet dining and extraordinary entertainment, Las Vegas has a different story. Addiction, homelessness and mental health struggles have impacted countless lives. Vegas Stronger, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, is working to offer a different future where every individual, regardless of their past or circumstances, can heal, recover and reclaim their life.

Vegas Stronger provides compassionate, evidence-based behavioral health care to underserved populations in the community. Its goal is to reduce homelessness by addressing root causes such as substance use disorders and untreated mental health conditions. Vegas Stronger received its official documents from the Secretary of State more than 10 years ago and has been treating patients for eight years in Las Vegas.

“We’re pulling the Las Vegas community together to help solve the homelessness crisis because none of us like having somebody suffering in our community,” said David Marlon, founder and CEO of Vegas Stronger, who holds a doctorate in psychology. “I recognize that Las Vegas has a soul. After the Oct. 1 shooting, we saw many people in our community pull together, whether it was to donate blood, offer counseling services or help people grieve. Las Vegas pulled together, and we showed that we have a soul. Now, over 8,000 people are suffering on our streets, and we wanted to show that the community has a soul.”

Today, Vegas Stronger has five locations, with its central facility at 916 N. Main St. and additional counseling offices in Las Vegas, Reno and Pahrump, Nevada.

“We offer all the levels of outpatient care, which we call PHP, partial hospitalization, which is 20 hours a week of counseling. IOP, which is an intensive outpatient program, is nine to 10 hours a week of counseling,” Marlon said. “We also have four psychiatric prescribers who provide medicine. We offer peer support specialists who connect with each of our clients and have a peer relationship.”

Ten case managers help clients obtain EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer), food service, housing and medical support. The facility includes a large gym with personal trainers for every client and yogis who create individualized yoga and breathing programs.

“We have many amenities under what we call an integrative health care, behavioral health care solution,” Marlon added.

Although family programming is available, it’s usually not accessed by clients until much later in the program. “Most unhoused people have burned all the bridges with family,” he said.

As for the population, “We have over 100 clients who are ordered by the courts to attend treatment,” Marlon said. “We also do direct jail pickups, where we take 50 people a month directly from one of the three jails in Clark County and bring them [to Main Street] when they get out.”

When someone walks in the door, they almost always say they need housing.

“We recognize that, in our experience, 94 percent of them have a substance use disorder. Helping them stop using substances is actually a higher order of importance than getting them housed. We do get them into drug treatment, but for every client who walks in, we immediately get them housed.”

Housing usually starts in a shelter, transitions to sober living, then to transitional housing and eventually to permanent housing.

“It’s mostly men who are unhoused on our streets. I will tell you that 20 to 30 percent of the females we treat have gone through horrific traumas. No female should be out on the streets of Las Vegas ever,” Marlon said. “We need to get services to them and help them get off the street. It’s a mostly white population, with an average age in the mid-30s, along with people from BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and people of color] communities. We treat all ages, although there are very few children. I’m grateful that there are lots of resources to help children quickly get into the social safety net.”

There’s also a geriatric population, as hospitals sometimes discharge patients to shelters because they have no place to go after a medical procedure. “That’s a really challenging population to address, but we help any human who walks in our door,” Marlon added.

That includes people with pets.

“If they need inpatient detox, we often facilitate pet boarding. They’ll bring their pet to our outpatient groups and individual sessions. We’ll even help dogs get little shoes.”

Vegas Stronger also maintains a close relationship with the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, which refers clients. For two years, the central facility offered a Native healing group.

As for faith-based organizations, “I believe in God and a connection to me is instrumental in helping people recover. We are a medical model facility and we’re utilizing a medical model to help people get well. As part of that, our case managers will encourage people to reconnect or open a new connection to a spiritual system of the patient’s choosing,” Marlon said. “We’ve had support from the faith-based community in providing meals and other types of support. We’ve got one of the congregations considering helping us with some funding to do some projects in the building that need to be done.”

How can the community help? “Like any nonprofit, funding is a priority,” said Stacey Lockhart, vice president of philanthropy. “We do receive some federal, state, county and city grant funding, but it never covers all the costs. We’ll have 130 to 140 clients here at one time. It’s bustling and noisy and our staff are working in cubbyholes. We need another building and expansion. We need to do some renovations to this building. Our vision is continuing to expand because the demand for what Vegas Stronger does is there from the community.”

Lockhart wants to reach out to the community at large, including individuals who may have been affected by a friend, family member or loved one who has experienced mental health challenges, struggled with addiction or lost someone. “We provide transportation so clients can get here and back every day. We spend over $600,000 a year transporting clients because we know it improves outcomes.”

Small gifts matter too. Hygiene packs are always needed to give to the outreach team as they connect with those on the streets. Vegas Stronger also partners with Wendi Schweigart at Project Marilyn, picking up 100 sanitary kits monthly.

“We feed our clients every day while they’re here. We’re making protein shakes in the morning to help improve health,” Lockhart said.

The Just One Project is another supporter and community members can sponsor a lunch or organize team building by providing meals.

“Even if you provide 150 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, every little bit helps. There are so many different ways for people to get involved,” she added.

Vegas Stronger also provides a clothing closet, with a strong need for men’s clothing, especially tennis shoes, pants and shorts. Laundry soap, cleaning supplies and even dirt for the community garden are appreciated.

One of the most meaningful gifts someone can give is the Vegas Stronger “Golden Ticket”—an actual, physical ticket that offers shelter and treatment when presented.

“People in need will call other places and be told there’s a three- to six-month wait. When somebody’s ready, we really need to take advantage of that moment because that’s where they’re at right now,” Marlon said.

“At Gobble Gobble Give [a community Thanksgiving event], I gave out 400 Golden Tickets. I walk along the line and visit with people,” Lockhart added.

Vegas Stronger began when Marlon, then CEO of Solutions Recovery, and John Seeland, CEO of Las Vegas Recovery Center, came together to discuss how to better serve the most vulnerable. They ran two of the largest drug treatment centers in Nevada and realized they could have a greater impact together.

“There were actually five of us who believed in the vision, and we began filing documents and opened what is now Vegas Stronger. We believe having immediate access to integrated behavioral health care, with longer treatment durations, is the secret sauce to solving addiction and homelessness,” Marlon said.

A Las Vegas resident for more than 38 years, Marlon worked in the health care field, got sober and opened Solutions Recovery, which he sold 13 years later for a little more than $20 million.

“I felt called back to Las Vegas not to retire on the beach but to work hard to help the underserved. I often tell my partner we have our burial plots at Palm Mortuary in Las Vegas, so this is where I live now and will live forever,” he said, laughing.

Vegas Stronger continues raising awareness and visibility. When visitors tour the facility and meet alumni, current clients and staff, they are often amazed.

Upcoming events include a luncheon in September, a community cleanup, a semiannual graduation and more.

For more information, visit vegasstronger.org, sign up for the newsletter and follow @VegasStrongerOfficial on Facebook and Instagram and @VegasStronger1 on X (formerly Twitter).