Asheville City Staff Offers Support Through United Way's 211

Asheville City Staff Offers Support Through United Way's 211

During the onset of the Coronavirus crisis, eight City of Asheville staff were re-assigned to United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County's 211 call center to help meet the growing needs of local residents. On March 18, Governor Cooper named 211 the official COVID response information and referral resource, and over the course of the four months following, 85,000 calls have been made for support statewide and 13,200 throughout Western North Carolina. Within that, eight City of Asheville employees reassigned to United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County's 211 answered 3,400 calls and counting!

A Mixture of Emotions...

Tom Downing is the Financial and Programmatic Compliance Specialist for the City of Asheville, which he says means that he's the guy folks call to ask questions around how to fulfill the needs of agreements made with the city correctly. "I'm a conduit to the finance department and to the policies and procedures in how we're supposed to work. So I'm the answer guy. I'm kind-of like the 211 guy for these programs," he says. Having been in that role for over three years and in the City Manager's office in a similar role before, he says it's been a mixture of emotions to step into a new role on the 211 lines for United Way.

"I've personally talked to so many people who have said, I've never called 211 before and I've never had issues not paying my rent or my car payment, but I need help now and I don't know what to do," he shared. "And you can hear in their voice that they're just at the end of their rope and I have to respond in a way that's helpful, respectful, and professional and set my emotions for this person's situation aside and calmly tell them that I'm looking to see what we have in our database of resources to support them."

We All Need Help Sometimes...

Maggie Ryan, Onboarding Specialist for the City of Asheville, was also reassigned to 211 at the onset of COVID and says she was humbled to be able to offer that level of support to her Buncombe County neighbors. "I spoke with a young lady who was living in her car, her bank account was overdrawn, her phone was going to be cut off in a few days and she was saying I just hate to ask for anything and I think so many of us are that way. And maybe that's a collective thing we all have to learn-- that it's okay to ask for help. We all need help sometimes," she says.

Tom recounts a similar story of someone calling after receiving an eviction invoice. "They were obviously upset and I was like, well there's actually a moratorium on evictions right now, so you don't have to leave," he said. "It's pretty amazing to be able to help people discern the misinformation and find them the help they need. And it isn't just us answering the calls, but all of those organizations and the thousands of people running the organizations we fill our databases with to help people as they need support."