WASHTENAW COUNTY, MI – Some callers to a central Washtenaw County intake line seeking emergency shelter, rental assistance and other aid in the midst of housing crises found only a voicemail inbox this spring.
As a changeover in phone providers brought the system down temporarily, messages to the single doorway to critical services for people at risk of or experiencing homelessness piled up.
They reached a backlog of more than 1,000 voicemails in early June, a number that snowballed to more than double that sum in the weeks that followed, according to county officials.
“Washtenaw County residents are not currently being provided critical services,” they wrote in mid-June in a formal warning to the local Salvation Army, which runs the intake, called Housing Access for Washtenaw County.
Two weeks later, officials decided to take the program out of the Salvation Army’s hands completely, spelling the end to more than a decade of the organization serving as a doorway to the county’s homelessness services.
Reviewing the situation, they evaluated the organization’s ability to adjust and respond quickly during the “crisis” with the phone systems down, said Teresa Gillotti, director of the county’s Office of Community and Economic Development.
The level of responsiveness officials saw “is not what we were looking for as a community, and that was the point where we decided we should disengage with HAWC and look for a new provider,” she said.
Gillotti said her office loaned staff members to work through the backlog, which violated policies saying callers should get a response within 24 hours.
HAWC staff have been “incredibly committed,” Gillotti said, and the Salvation Army will continue to be a part of the county’s social safety net system even while not running intake services.
“It’s understandable,” Salvation Army Maj. Brian Goodwill said of the decision. “We hope that whatever agency takes on this role … we certainly wish them all the best. I mean it impacts our community, and that’s who we’re here to serve. We want what’s best for Washtenaw County.”
Tech issues, staffing challenges hurt ‘highly vulnerable’ residents
A number of factors combined to fuel the breakdown at HAWC, which assesses and refers families to rental assistance, shelters, landlord dispute mediation and other services as the single point of entry to the safety net for those at risk of losing housing, or who have already done so in Washtenaw County.
The Salvation Army saw an uptick in calls as the end neared for some COVID-19 pandemic aid, like a state rental and utility assistance program that has provided county residents some $24.7 million since March 2021, Goodwill said.
They organization also was short-staffed as a required phone system switch left it unable to answer calls for three or four days – an outage compounded by technical issues not anticipated ahead of time, he said.
As staff worked to slim the backlog when service was restored, the calls didn’t stop either.
“It was sort of this perpetual thing of trying to get caught back up that left us sort of reeling and spinning for a while,” Goodwill said.
County officials learned more than 1,000 voicemails had built up in early June, according to an Aug. 3 presentation delivered to the board of the county’s Continuum of Care, a regional planning group coordinating efforts from nonprofits, governments and other institutions to fight homelessness.
During the phone system switch, there wasn’t a plan in place to make sure urgent calls got a prompt response, Gillotti said, and the backlog swelled to more than 2,000 unanswered calls as time went on, according to the presentation.
The technological and staffing setbacks “have further disenfranchised a population in Washtenaw County that is already highly vulnerable,” reads a written warning county officials wrote to the Salvation Army on June 14, imposing a deadline for issues to be addressed.
At the time, assessments of families who could be homeless or at imminent risk of becoming so were scheduled for one to two weeks after intake, despite policy saying they should have been completed with 48 hours, according to the August presentation.
Goodwill acknowledged his organization wasn’t able to meet the deadline. By late June, county officials were meeting with the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, which provided funding for HAWC, about their options.
Around June 28, officials decided to disengage with the Salvation Army after learning they could do so given it was out compliance with policies, with consequences for residents experiencing homelessness, Gillotti said.
For now, the Salvation Army is still running the intake line.
After several weeks, with the support of county staff and internal Salvation Army workers redirected to the intake center, the system has been restored to normal, with staff taking live calls, Goodwill said.
“In a perfect world, none of those things would have been occurring, but obviously they were,” he said. “And to be honest they were issues that while we were working very, very diligently to try to address, there was just a certain amount of work that we weren’t able to keep up with, unfortunately.”
What’s next for the housing support system in Washtenaw County?
Officials are looking at the situation as an opportunity to improve the system serving residents battling housing insecurity, Gillotti said.
In late July, they had a listening session with social service providers and residents with experience with HAWC that was attended by more than 100 participants.
Among the major themes were concerns about being unable to reach staffers with the program, according to a summary of the feedback received at the gathering.
“Clients give up because they can’t get through or receive a call back. This renders the entire system of care ineffective,” it reads.
The problem has hit residents when they most need help.
One person who responded to a survey about HAWC, who was homeless with three children, said they had left voicemails for two weeks and sent an email with no response, according to the feedback summary.
Of those who attended the listening session, 56% said it took calling more than five times to get assistance.
Recommendations to improve the phone line included expanded hours, quicker response, walk-in availability and potentially multiple points of entry to the system of housing support.
County officials hope to issue a request for proposals for another agency or agencies to take over the intake service soon, Gillotti said, with the hope of having a new provider in place by October.
“There are some challenges overall, and I think there may be a need to better resource the system to the expectation of the community as far as a response,” she said.
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