Essential Services in L.A. County Are at Risk

GUEST OPINION

Los Angeles County may contract community services to an outside corporation.

By Victoria Stratman

In times of crisis, tragedy and trauma, Los Angeles County residents can dial 2-1-1 to get connected to essential community services like emergency housing assistance, meal delivery and transportation.

But here’s the problem: right now, L.A. County is looking at fundamentally changing the way 2-1-1 works by taking it out of the hands of our community and putting it under the control of a large, profit-seeking corporation with tentacles in more than 150 countries and territories. All across Los Angeles County, our fellow community members in need are at risk of losing essential services — but it is not too late to save them.

For the last 40 years, the 2-1-1 hotline here in L.A. County has been run by a nonprofit organization, 211 LA. 211 LA understands our community because they are our community. The staff at 211 LA live in our community. They are majority female, majority people of color and majority bilingual. That’s important because low-income women of color with school-aged children are the most likely individuals to call 2-1-1.

211 LA connects 400,000 people yearly with needed services

As a board member at 211 LA, and a longtime resident of Altadena, I can tell you how important this organization is to our community. Every year, 211 LA connects 400,000 people with the services they need to address homelessness, food insecurity, health and mental health challenges, legal issues and more. Since the start of the COVID pandemic, 211 LA has nearly doubled that number, ramping up quickly to provide critical public health information, program enrollments, appointment scheduling and more.

And 211 LA has gone above and beyond what’s required by the County to provide innovative text, chat, and email options for individuals and families in need. Last year, 211 LA staff responded to over 18,000 web chats, 15,000 emails and 8,500 texts. The 211 LA website handled over 1 million search queries.

211 LA knows the best way to connect our neighbors in need to community services because they have roots here. Every staff member at 211 LA cares about each caller as if they know them on a personal basis. Some staff have even called 2-1-1 themselves during challenging times.

Who really cares about you?

Ultimately, you have to ask: when times are hard, who really cares about you? A corporation or the community?

211 LA operates from a place of love and empathy, not from a place of profit and greed.

Now more than ever, we need strong community services to help us out when we need it. Between the rising cost of housing, the COVID-19 pandemic, violence in our streets and so much uncertainty, the last thing we need is to put a big corporation in charge of our safety net.

L.A. County still has time to reverse this mistake and keep 211 LA as the sole operator of the county’s 2-1-1 services. Our community needs 211 LA.

Victoria Stratman lives in Altadena and is the former General Counsel for Caltech. A member of the California State Bar, she has been an active volunteer with NACUA, Jericho Road and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training, and serves on the boards of the Armory Center for the Arts and 211 LA.