Smith: Saving 211 hotline is right call for Indiana

It’s quite unfair if you think about it.

For years, employees at Indiana’s 211 hotline have been there to help Hoosiers in need. Day and night. Seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

People who are suicidal and need to talk to someone? Check. People who are considering turning in a neighbor for child abuse and want to know the consequences of doing so first? Check. People who are running from abusive spouses, or are about to be evicted and need to find shelter? Check and doublecheck.

Dispatchers at the Connect2Help call center in Indianapolis and at other 211 centers across the state help more than half a million people a year find the resources they need to get out of a jam.

Yet, year after year when 211 has needed help, we, the taxpayers, led by the state and local officials we elected, have turned our backs on the nonprofit.

Instead, philanthropic foundations, including the Glick Family Fund and United Way of Central Indiana, have been footing the bill — the bill for a service so popular that it ranks only behind 211 centers in Los Angeles and New York City in terms of use.

Something has to give.

Now, the Indiana General Assembly is considering whether to appropriate $2 million a year to help keep 211 afloat. The House has agreed to the appropriation, but the Senate is on the fence. Lawmakers have until the end of the session to decide — a date rapidly approaching.

Lynn Engel, president and CEO of 211 Connect2Help, is anxious.

“I honestly worry about whether 211 will still be here if we don’t get some help,” she said. “There is such a thing as donor fatigue.”

Chances are the philanthropic community won’t walk away from 211 completely, but the foundations do want to reduce their investments. And they should be able to do so.

The taxpayers of Indiana need to step up and foot part of the bill. It’s only fair.

What 211 dispatchers provide is a necessary public service. One that keeps hundreds of thousands of minor problems from turning into big ones that would instead require the attention of 911 dispatchers, police officers, firefighters and EMTs.

Even government agencies rely on the service.

For example, Indianapolis, as part of its Your Life Matters initiative, has been telling overwhelmed parents to call 211 if they need help dealing with their unruly teenage boys. And more recently, the state, as part of its “Labor of Love” campaign to reduce infant mortality rates, has encouraged expectant mothers to call 211 if they need advice on prenatal care.

“Every piece of material on that campaign says call 211 and we didn’t even know about it,” Engel said. “That’s fine. We want people to have happy and healthy babies. But most people do think that we are a statewide service supported by public dollars, but we’re not.”

Spend time in the 211 center in Indianapolis, as I have, and you’ll quickly learn two things.

First, a lot of people in Indiana are in trouble and have no idea where to turn for help. People who have lost their jobs, lost their homes, lost their friends and families, and have even lost their sanity. People who don’t have a safety net of any kind.

Second, you’ll see how unorganized and siloed our network of service providers is. Nonprofits within miles of each other offer the same services, but are unaware of each other’s existence. State agencies are bureaucratic nightmares that all but invite people to give up without getting the assistance they need.

It’s 211 that gets calls from confused, frustrated Hoosiers. And the dispatchers, with their bird’s eye view of the system, know how to handle it.

Without 211, the public and private safety net would be far less effective. And without a budget appropriation, many of those cuts to 211 service would start in some of the state’s poorest rural counties.

The General Assembly can’t let that happen. We can’t let that happen.

Contact Star columnist Erika D. Smith at (317) 444-6424, erika.smith@indystar.com, on Twitter at @erika_d_smith or at www.facebook.com/ErikaDSmith.Journalist.