free hotline.

2, 1, 1, is connecting.

Cook County residents with everyday services from homelessness prevention to legal aid.

The organization is celebrating 2 years of operation and is seeing increased demand.

Joining was joining us with more Richard Le Pratt, executive director of 2, one metro Chicago and Jack Nicholson, vice-president of Strategic Initiatives for United Way of Metro Chicago.

Thank you both for joining Congrats on this big milestone that thank you.

So we have we know 9-1-1, we know for 1, 1, Now we have 2 on one, Richard.

You know, we mentioned a couple.

But what type of services can someone be connected when they call to 1, 1, >> really 2, 1, 1, is about all health and human services.

When you call to 1, 1, you can be connected with housing resources, legal assistance, any type of food resource.

We have a partnership with the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

We're all food resources in our communities uploaded into our database every 6 hours.

That means no person should go hungry in our community.

But more importantly, each day our database grows and that includes mental health services, any type of health and human service or any type of cap that we hear.

We're going to be looking to expand database to examine those partnerships with the greater with the Greater Food Depository DOT was in 2023.

We also having a new partnership with the American Red Cross after the flooding that occurred in 2023, both in the city of Chicago Austan suburban Cook are we helped hundreds of families get connected with disaster services.

And we continue to partner with them to making sure that we're staying ahead of issues that may occur in the community like apartment fires or maybe local disasters that are kind.

1, 1, is making it that important for individuals to get connected and making sure that no one should suffer, that we're looking to making sure that they're getting connected with essential services in the community.

And Jackie, let's go a little bit like a little further.

Were.

Can someone expect when they call?

Yeah, but that's a great question.

I think they can expect is a warm >> voice on the other end of call.

So I think that's really important to note.

It's we have navigators that are available.

24 7, they're trained.

You're getting a live person at the other end of this call.

That's very much trained to understand the need and often what ends up happening is you're calling for one social service and you end up getting connected to multiple social services.

And that's because our navigators are so well trained and understanding sort of a holistic approach to making sure that families or individuals in need receiving the comprehensive services that they deserve actually remember, visiting the call center think last year, beginning of January definitely got to meet some of the navigators and could see some of that passion.

Is that important?

Oh, absolutely.

I think it's also point out that our navigators are from Chicago and from suburban Cook County.

So not only are they trained to understand the need, but they're also.

Residents of our great city and county that are living and breathing every single day and understanding sort of the complexity of what Chicago social services have to offer and how has it been to get the word after 2, 1, It's been great.

I think we still obviously have more to go.

But I think that again and which can speak to this as well, I think having a very strategic outreach team that is able to coordinate with a social service partners on the ground, being able to get out to fares, being able to get out to, you know, resource information, Hobbs.

I think those are all things that are really important to get the word out beyond obviously the billboards.

But I think that if you go to like a resource fair and you see 2, 1, one tabling, that's that one on one individual sort of information sharing that makes people more likely to call 2, 1, 1, And I can imagine, Richard, from the beginning that Ed started to now, you know, what has a grown been like for the last 2 years?

Because, again, we're used to calling 9-1-1 one.

I think there's 3, 2, Yeah.

So what has that feedback been like?

So initially when we started in January, we really didn't know what to expect when we started this, we built a database.

>> Full of these essential services and kind of doing everything we could to reach out our first year.

We tended anywhere between 5 to 7,000 contacts and this past year in 2024, for handling more than 19 to 22,000 contacts month, seeing more than 100% increase year-over-year.

And we're already outpacing that by 50% this year coming into 2025. lot of their higher needs around housing, utilities and food has really increased where people are really looking at how they can get the basic services in our community.

But more to the point of what Jackie mentioned, it isn't so much about this just the essential need.

It's about asking about the secondary.

If I have housing need and I hear kids in the background, how can I get other services?

Do you have food to feed like a list of places?

Maybe they can go get out and not only that, but we're verbalize ING.

We're letting them know what services are available.

And then we also connect with a text or an email to give them the list so that way they can connect.

And then we'll follow up within 7 to 14 days to making sure that their service was well connected or if they have other issues that they to ask.

That is is it important, Jackie, to follow up because it's one thing calling absolutely.

And I think that follow-up is so important in terms of having people feel like the services are that, you know, they call it the closed-loop refer.

All right.

That not only are you being given the locations you can go to to receive the service.

But then there's a follow-up call with an individual that asked you how that went, which also helps inform our database to know what services are available.

>> What are at capacity?

How long did it take for you?

Put on a waiting list.

All of that information is really important for us as we think about how we're addressing people's needs real time.

offer Spanish speaking Kerr.

Absolutely.

Yes.

And I think that's something that's really important to note is that we're breaking down barriers by having multiple languages available.

So we do have Spanish speakers that are also on call.

24 7, because I think that's really important, right?

If if you can't speak the language, you're less likely to call and ask for help.

But if you know that there's a Spanish speaker on the other end of the line that that barrier right there is now taken down.

Rich, really have time for one last question.

But is there a story that's still a situation of somebody that, >> you know, still stays with you that use 2, 1, 1, >> I think there are many stories, but I think more importantly, we've got a story that sticks with me is really about an individual who had called over and over to many different places and couldn't get through.

But when took on the housing hotlines, this individual is able to get through with 3 kids in their home and really was able to work with our staff to make sure she was connected.

And then about a month or 2 later, we found out that she was actually able to get into housing with her kids because she was able to connect with