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One Number Connects Homeless People To Services

Matthew Woitunski CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)

Homeless people in the Charlotte region in need of housing, health care or other services will now be able to call one number for help.

Credit United Way of Central Carolinas
Sean Garrett, executive director of the United Way of the Central Carolinas

The United Way’s NC 211 line allows people to get the referrals that they need, without having to go through multiple agencies. 

Three years ago, United Way of the Central Carolinas set up what’s called a coordinated intake system, to share the information of a person requesting help with agencies throughout the region. They had to sit down with a counselor and answer a page of questions before being referred to a shelter or agency. There were few counselors available and the wait was often long. Sean Garrett, executive director of the United Way of the Central Carolinas says NC 211 streamlines that process.

“First, they can call any time of day,” Garrett said. “Second, instead of being one or two people to answer the questions and walk them through the screener, you now had a whole call center trained to do that. Individuals or families should not have to wait the way they do today and they can do it at a time that’s convenient for them.”

They can also use NC 211 online. Charlotte and Mecklenburg county officials trained the call center’s multi-lingual staff. Garrett says there are 30 people answering calls at all times. He says they can handle multiple challenges at a time because they are connected with numerous service groups throughout the state.

It’s estimated that there are about 1,400 homeless people in Mecklenburg County and about 12,000 statewide. 

Gwendolyn is an award-winning journalist who has covered a broad range of stories on the local and national levels. Her experience includes producing on-air reports for National Public Radio and she worked full-time as a producer for NPR’s All Things Considered news program for five years. She worked for several years as an on-air contract reporter for CNN in Atlanta and worked in print as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun Media Group, The Washington Post and covered Congress and various federal agencies for the Daily Environment Report and Real Estate Finance Today. Glenn has won awards for her reports from the Maryland-DC-Delaware Press Association, SNA and the first-place radio award from the National Association of Black Journalists.