November
2003
The Welfare Reporter
Community Voice Mail to Expand, Modernize
Seattle-based Community Voice Mail (CVM), which provides 24-hour voice mail to people around the country without a home to help them become self-sufficient, received a five-year $2.5 million grant from the Cisco Systems Foundation to triple the phone numbers it’s able to distribute.
“We’re pretty darned excited,” Patricia Bonnell, director of Development and Communications with CVM, told TWR about the grant. With recent census figures showing an additional 1.7 million people living below the poverty line, “the need is stronger than ever for this service.” With the grant, “we will utilize new technology to cut costs, ease administrative burdens and increase efficiency across our 37 sites nationwide,” Jennifer Brandon, executive director of Community Voice Mail (CVM), said in a statement.
CVM is a nonprofit group that offers free, personalized 24-hour voice mail access to individuals without a telephone. The organization, which has been in existence for 10 years, currently provides voice-messaging systems to 24,000 people without phones nationwide. The new grant will help expand the voice mail services from 37 to 65 cities, the organization says.
Government data cited by the group calculates that there are more than 5 million U.S. households without telephone services — not including the homeless, who may number 3 million people annually.
The service may be used by the long-term unemployed, the homeless, victims of domestic violence, runaway youth, kids who age out of the foster care system, migrant or day workers and others in need.
"It really does empower people,” Bonnell said, adding that clients can check their voice mail from any touch-tone phone anywhere, including the local YMCA, job training agency, library, welfare office or pay phone.
Clients enroll for free and set up their own mailbox in as little as three minutes. Users can then provide a consistent phone number on résumés or to prospective employers, which reduces the stigma associated with being homeless or with not having a phone. The number looks like any other and does not signal to the employer that a person may be homeless or “phoneless.” Company statistics tabulate that 50 percent of the free voice mail users looking for employment found jobs and 65 percent of clients found housing.
Typically, host organizations are local YMCAs, welfare-to-work agencies or other nonprofits that serve clients or work with other agencies that assist people in need. For instance, a CVM host site at a YMCA may receive a set of 20 numbers that in turn can be parceled out to a domestic violence shelter for its clients. Host sites are the “nerve center” for the programs and the link to the numbers for needy clients, Bonnell told TWR.
For groups interested in acting as hosts, CVM emphasizes the community-based nature of the program. “Our best advice is for interested agencies is to meet with their community organizations, assess the need and garner support,” Bonnell said. Organizations then may visit the Web site and download the materials necessary to apply.
“It’s actually pretty easy,” Bonnell said. “There is no governmental red tape to jump through, truly.” Host site proposals are chosen based on the level of community support, the willingness to meet the first-year objectives, adherence to staffing and technology objectives, and demonstrated performance moving forward, she added.
The new grant will enable the group to adopt the Cisco Unity™ Voice Over Internet Protocol voice mail delivery system to allow users to check messages via e-mail and by telephone in more than 20 languages. CVM anticipates serving 65,000 people annually by the end of 2007.
Certain Cities and Populations Need CVM
While any site in the top-50 cities may apply, there are a few areas of acute need, Bonnell said. Of the top-10 U.S. cities, all but Dallas has CVM. A once-thriving Los Angeles program also suddenly lost its funding and is on life support. “That is an extremely underserved community and right now the site there is effectively on hold,” she said. “We would love to see that become strong again.” Washington, D.C., another major city, has no CVM program, Bonnell said. CVM also gets frequent inquiries from potential clients and hosts in Baltimore. “We get inquiries weekly,” Bonnell said.
The national group also hopes to expand services to particular populations, such as foster children who reach maturity in the system. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a senior in high school, four months away from graduation, hit my 18th birthday and have my foster family kick me out because my checks aren’t going to come any more,” Bonnell said. “[A] Community Voice Mail number for a kid in that situation could just mean all the difference ... so that is a population we are really interested in trying to serve.” “We’re hopeful” to come together with an organization that has a “like mind,” she said.
Community Voice Mail numbers are distributed based on demonstrated financial need, lack of reliable phone service, or pursuit of a goal for work, housing, health care or safety from domestic violence. Once goals are achieved, the phone number is recycled to the next available subscriber. Some voice mailbox numbers are therefore used two to three times per year. Bonnell emphasized that clients rarely abuse the system.
Rather, she said they are seeking to be reintegrated and reconnected in mainstream society. In some cases, users are families who had to choose between $30-per-month phone service or heat. “If you don’t have a telephone, you’re utterly disconnected,” Bonnell said.
Other users are leaving abusive situations. “So many of our people are escaping domestic violence and the beauty of that number is that it can’t be traced to any physical address, which is just absolutely vital to the safety and the peace of mind of the people who use the system for that reason,” she said.
CVM was jumpstarted in 1993 after winning an Innovations in American Government award of $100,000. The project is now in the midst of another expansion to the 65 sites in the top-50 cities that is expected to take five years. Site locations are listed online with other information for clients.