The portal, a joint project between the city of El Paso and Cisco, aims to connect residents with centralized social services such as street outreach, shelter, food, COVID-19 assistance and mental health counseling.
The way it works is simple, according to Nicole Alderete-Ferrini, El Paso’s Climate and Sustainability Officer.
“You go to https://www.elpasohelps.org/, and there are cards there,” Alderete-Ferrini said. “You click on a card that describes the situation you’re in, and it takes you directly to one of the agencies that can help you in that space.”
In this case, the following agencies provide the following services:
- Amistad offers 24/7 access to teams equipped to handle street outreach.
- The Opportunity Center for the Homeless provides temporary emergency shelter through its new welcome center.
- United Way oversees food, safe places and COVID-19 assistance by supplying “Resilience Navigators” to help people navigate existing community resources.
- Endeavors provides permanent housing options through Rapid Rehousing.
- Emergence Health Network offers access to mental health services, including counseling, addiction services and veterans care.
As for funding the project, Alderete-Ferrini said, “the initial funding for the services that are being provided is American Recovery Act money.”
“We’ve talked a lot about a resilient and inclusive recovery in El Paso, and that means planning for the next decade, not for what those dollars can do tomorrow,” Alderete-Ferrini said. “Investing in this, starting this up, is really where our counsel took the lead and said, this is worth our investment.”
So, how does technology come into play to facilitate the portal?
According to Gary DePreta, Cisco’s vice president for state, local government and education, El Paso hosts the portal through Cisco’s networking infrastructure.
“You have to have a baseline infrastructure to support the technology,” DePreta said. “What we had leveraged is WebEx by Cisco, to have that live click through, which is as simple as Nicole describes, you click on what service you want, and it brings a live agent into the call to help direct you.”
However, as simple as it sounds, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any challenges, especially when it comes to providing 24/7 street outreach.
“That takes a lot of work on the back end,” Alderete-Ferrini said. “Putting this program together couldn’t be done overnight; we had to take that time and get all those providers in place.”
“Folks sometimes really focus on the front end of what it looks like,” Alderete-Ferrini added. “What they don’t realize is that to assemble a robust collaborative of providers, get them funded, get them all working together and coordinated, so that street outreach can go to a shelter and it all works through a technology system, was a big lift, a bigger lift than I think most people would see just looking at the product.”
As for what’s next, Alderete-Ferrini and DePreta pointed out the following:
On the city side, Alderete-Ferrini anticipates launching a second phase of the project later this year, which would incorporate more services and potentially — during phase three — offer kiosks.
From Cisco’s perspective, DePreta referred to the tech as a tool to digitize government services and as a way to rebuild residents’ trust in governments’ ability to efficiently provide essential services.
“When we see that happen, I really do think El Paso will create a model for other cities to follow across the U.S.,” DePreta said.
