Oregon Public Broadcasting

Everybody knows where to call if you have an emergency. Dial 911, and in most cases life saving help is just minutes away.

But what if your emergency is a financial crisis that threatens to put you out of your home, or that leaves you unable to feed your kids?

211 connects those in need with agencies that can help. And in Oregon, it’s a service that’s growing rapidly.

For six years now, The Shepard’s House in Bend has opened its doors to those who need help. It’s a Christian-based day shelter. Loomis Goode is the chaplain.

"A lot of our guys are in recovery from drugs and alcohol. A lot of them have been in prison. And we offer them classes. We offer them a lot of counseling. So we’re a full program house," he said.

Kayla Anchell / OPB

But Goode says when people come in looking for help with things the program doesn’t provide, he often sends them to the same place.

"And I’ll tell you, 'Have you ever tried 211?' 'Well no, what’s that?' So I’ll tell them what 211 is so they can make the connection ... we’ll even give them a phone let them call 211 from here," Goode explained.

For about 3 quarters of the state, 211 is a centralized clearing house for social service needs.

At a call center in Portland, anywhere between 4 to 10 operators answer calls weekdays between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Most of those calls are from people who need help with the basics: housing, food, health care.

Liesl Wendt is CEO of 211 Info. That’s the non-profit that fields 211 calls in Oregon and Southwest Washington.

Kayla Anchell / OPB

"Often people don’t know exactly what they’re calling for. They know that they’re about to be evicted from their house. They know that they have a shut-off notice from their utility company. But they don’t often know what and how to access services," Wendt says.

Operators on the other hand have that information at the tips of their fingers. Using careful listening and the most recent data, the operator can determine what the caller needs and what services might be available to them.

But while operators don’t need to be in the same county as the caller to be effective, success does require regional partners on the ground to keep the database current.

Ken Wilhelm is the executive director of the United Way of Deschutes County. That agency partners with 211 Info in Central Oregon. He says the idea of a referral service is really an old idea. What’s new, he says is the technology.

"You know, when I started it was index cards, a rolodex I guess would be how a lot of folks would remember it. So information technology developing as it has, it just made sense to eventually go to a digital clearing house function," Wilhelm says.

Wilhelm say 211 not only helps meet the needs of the people in the local community, but it also provides a huge benefit to the providers of services.

"It creates efficiencies both for the agencies and for the person seeking help," he explained.

Kayla Anchell / OPB

Wilhelm points to a 2004 study conducted at the University of Texas. Researchers there caculated that a national 211 system could save society more than a billion dollars over the course of a decade.

211 Info’s Wendt say the service can also be a useful tool to help governments better provide services.

"As resources become scarcer, I think there’s an even bigger desire to understand what’s actually happening in real time in a community. And by real time I mean what happened last month in Deschutes, who’s looking for what types of services, where are the people's needs getting met, where are those gaps in services so that policy makers can make the best decision in the most timely way possible," she said.

211 Info operates in 18 Oregon counties.

With the holidays and the cold weather approaching, it’s a service that’s likely to get more an more calls in the coming months. Wendt says the non-profit plans to offer service to all counties in the state by 2013.