Chicago Has Voice Mail for Homeless

Voice mail, a high-tech fixture in corporate offices, has come to the homeless.

Homeless job-seekers in Chicago can give prospective employers a telephone number for a city-sponsored automated answering service. The employer leaves a message the homeless person gets by calling a toll-free number.

“Nobody wants to hire you if they can’t call you,” said Billy Jeffries, 35, one of Chicago’s estimated 4,000 to 6,000 homeless people.

The city’s Human Services Department launched the program six weeks ago by distributing to homeless shelters 2,000 plastic cards bearing the toll-free number, Jackie Edens, director of homeless services, said.

The effort is similar to a pioneering program begun nearly two years ago in Seattle, but with a key difference: In Seattle, homeless users are assigned personal “voice mailboxes” from which they retrieve recorded messages; in Chicago, city workers listen to the recorded messages and relay them to the homeless callers.

“We’ve gotten some ominous messages like, ‘Meet me on the corner at 6:30 on Friday,’ that we’re not going to pass on,” Edens said. “This is strictly to help people find jobs.”