Free phone numbers keep Vancouver downtrodden connected

If you can’t afford a phone but you’re searching for a job what would you cite as contact information on an application? What if you’ve had important medical tests done but had no number for the doctor to call with the results? How would you know if there was an emergency with a loved one?

For people in the Downtown Eastside living on the street or those unable to pay their phone bills, keeping in contact with people and programs that can help them is an ongoing challenge. But one local organization has created new lines of communication.

Vancouver’s Lu’ma Native Housing Society is funding a new way for people in crisis to get back on their feet, by handing out free phone numbers which go directly to voicemail.

The idea is simple. Various local support agencies get banks of numbers to hand out to customers. Anyone who can’t afford a phone but needs a way to stay connected can sign up for one of the free lines.

Clients don’t get a phone, but do get a private voicemail, which allows them to keep in touch with employers, health care providers or family and friends.

“I didn’t have a cellphone because I was homeless for a while,” said Loretta John. She said the voicemail service allows her to keep in touch with her daughter, counsellors and doctors and helped in her search for jobs and housing.

Having the voicemail was a really good asset for my healing journey,” said John, who is back in school.

Part of the program is helping clients set goals, said voicemail project manager John Foster. Deciding what they need the phone number for helps people understand how to best utilize the system.

The most popular goal is employment. “Which I find quite remarkable because 80 per cent of them are homeless and so you’d think ‘well the number one goal must be housing,’ but its actually self sufficiency,” said Foster, pointing to the pie charts for the program’s first year-end report.

After employment, most customers listed housing, health care and social services as reasons for using the voicemail program.

Foster noted tools like the voicemail are crucial tools for the clients. Many don’t want to list the number of a homeless shelter as contact information when filling out job applications.

“Poverty stigma is very degrading. So this is kind of a fake it till you make it way for people,” he said.

Clients call in from anywhere to retrieve messages and hear bulletins on health and weather alerts, community events and shelter services. And just like any regular voicemail system, users create a personal greeting to let callers know that they are unavailable.

“There’s a lot of homeless people in Vancouver right now who when you call them you get ‘Hello It’s John, I’m not at home to take your call,’” joked Foster.

Before the program, people were getting messages about things such as medical test results or job offers on bulletin boards at the Carnegie Centre or shelters. Foster said it wasn’t a good way for people to manage their lives.

“I think this is a baby step towards self-sufficiency,” he said.

Lu’ma hopes to partner with Bell Canada and the Cisco Foundation, the company providing the lines, to offer the program in other cities across Canada.