Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 16, 1993 TAG: 9302160081
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CINCINNATI LENGTH: Medium
HOMELESS GET A NEW LINE ON JOBS
Seven numbers can be a big obstacle for a homeless person trying to find a job.Prospective employers can't call an applicant who doesn't have a telephone. And they may be reluctant to hire someone who leaves the number of a homeless shelter.
"The attitude is, if they're homeless, are they reliable?" said Goldie Lowry of St. John Social Service Center.
Social service groups and businesses across the country are trying to help by providing free telephone message services for the homeless and poor.
Cincinnati's program began in November. There are 30 or 40 similar programs nationwide.
Participants in the Housing and Employing Local People program in Cincinnati are assigned voice-mail boxes. They can give the number when applying for jobs so employers don't know they're homeless.
About 100 people are using the 500-box-capacity service. At least one man has a found a job since HELPfon started, said Lowry, assistant executive director of the center, which coordinates the program.
Besides retrieving messages, the homeless can get information on services, where to find soup kitchens and shelters, or how to apply for apartments in housing projects.
About 50 calls for information come in a day, said Sandy Jones, a Dictaphone Inc. sales representative who helped set up the system.
Mike Fontana, director of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless, said the toll-free information number spares the area's 2,000 homeless the expense of making calls to numerous agencies.
"They spend a lot of time and energy calling all these numbers to get imprecise information," he said. "What this does is narrow it down to a single phone call."
Kenneth Huffaker, a 28-year-old former construction worker from Cincinnati, has had his voice-mail box for about two weeks.
"I think it will be real helpful," Huffaker said. "The way that the system is set up, I don't necessarily have to go down there to get messages."
Huffaker is enrolled in a center-run program meant to help poor people find jobs.
HELPfon was established after an editor at The Cincinnati Post read about a similar program in Seattle. Scripps Howard Inc., which publishes the Post, is paying the $800 to operate the toll-free number during the pilot year. The Post provided the telephone lines.
Dictaphone, based in Stratford, Conn., provided the $18,000 voice-mail system for $5,200 yearly rent. Donations from Cincinnati banks Central Trust, Fifth-Third, Provident and Star covered the cost.
In Seattle, about 85 percent of the people who use Community Voice Mail get results in four to five weeks, said Patricia Barry, employment services director for The Worker Center, which runs the program.
Community Voice Mail began in 1991 with 50 voice mail boxes, and expanded to 250 boxes in May. From May through November last year, 95 people using the system found jobs, and 86 found housing, Barry said.
She said 30 to 40 cities, including Los Angeles and St. Louis, have started similar programs.
"This is a really good example of corporations using their own products to influence social change and provide human service assistance," she said. "Why didn't we think of this before? It's so basic."