Positive Outcomes

Community Voice Mail offers homeless people their own telephone number and voice mail service. A pilot recently began with Cisco and six Big Issue vendors in Melbourne and will assess the potential to roll out the empowering technology more widely across the homeless community.

The Big Issue is a non-profit organization which publishes independent current affairs and entertainment magazine ‘The Big Issue’. The Big Issue provides homeless and other marginalized Australians with important work skills and the opportunity to earn their own income, and also assists them in reconnecting with the general community. Vendors keep half the cover price of the magazine as direct income.

Since vendors are either homeless or long-term unemployed, however, many do not possess something most of us take for granted: a telephone. This is a huge barrier in accessing employment, housing and other opportunities, not to mention staying in contact with friends and family.

“It’s a situation most of us can’t even imagine,” said John Currey, Administration Coordinator at the Big Issue. “With no way to be contacted, it means having to walk around to see if a housing placement or medical appointment has become available.”

Community Voice Mail (CVM) originated in the United States as a way to tackle this imbalance in access to communications. CVM provides free, personalised 24-hour voice mail access to those without a telephone. In July 2003, the Cisco Foundation awarded a $2.5 million grant to CVM in the US to be used over a five-year period.

Now, a six-month pilot of CVM has begun in Australia at the Big Issue.

In May, six Big Issue vendors visited the Melbourne office for training on the Cisco UNITY voicemail system. Also onsite were representatives from Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), a volunteer group from Melbourne University which is evaluating the project’s outcomes and benefits.

The day achieved its goals of providing basic training and gathering vendor feedback on amendments that could further ease their experience with the system.

“The feedback from vendors was very positive,” said Currey. “They were initially apprehensive about the technology side of it, but since it was relatively easy to use they gained confidence quite fast.”

The long-term aim is to roll out CVM to other Big Issue state offices, and even to other non-profit groups in the future.

“It’s going to be incredibly valuable for the vendors to have access to the same communications technologies everybody else has,” said Currey. “It is a ground-breaking area for us. We’ve not had this opportunity before.”