Need Help? Dial 2-1-1

2-1-1 Orange County

By Orange County Supervisor Pat Bates

When Orange County residents need help and it’s not a 911 emergency, it can be confounding knowing who to call. That’s where 2-1-1 Orange County comes in.

Dialing three numbers (211) connects callers with staff who are expert in assessing each person’s situation and referring them to the best avenues for help. The organization fields some 70,000 calls a year, and connects callers with assistance from a database of more than 2,000 agencies. Many of the most-referred agencies are within the County of Orange.

The organization has previously been cautious in promoting itself so that the volume of calls they handle doesn’t degrade the quality of the service they’re able to give callers. Newly acquired technology and the merger with another OC nonprofit, OC Partnership, puts them in a better position to serve more callers.

The County of Orange has been a supporter of 2-1-1 OC since 2006. Last month, the Board of Supervisors renewed our funding support for another year.

OC Partnership also has long ties to the County via its role in uniting government agencies and non-governmental organizations through the Commission to End Homelessness. The two organizations are moving into a common headquarters this summer in Santa Ana’s The Village nonprofit center.

The calls they handle include people seeking food, clothing, medical help or other basic human needs; navigating the Affordable Care Act or other insurance access; counseling for depression, mental problems or substance abuse; job training or help finding a job, and a host of other services. The needs list is topped by callers seeking or trying to hold on to adequate shelter.

2-1-1 OC’s work dovetails with OC Partnership’s long-term efforts with the County to end homelessness. Along with helping to keep families off the streets, the aid network accessed by 2-1-1 OC keeps many problems from escalating to 911 situations later.

The key to the service is the staff who answers the phones. Many come from a social services background and undergo weeks of training, of which a deep knowledge of the help options in the database is only one factor.

Along with being of service to the public, 2-1-1 OC’s role as a bridge to service agencies has advantages for the agencies as well. When a call is routed to them, the 211 staff has already determined that the caller and situation is relevant to the agency’s purview, and the caller has been pre-screened for eligibility.

Though calling remains the most effective means of finding help, there is an increasingly robust website at www.211oc.org.