Housing Hotline answers call of service

Every morning at 9 on the dot, phones begin to light up at the Council for the Homeless headquarters in Vancouver.

Each call is a window to Clark County’s housing crisis. The call might be from a person living on the street looking for shelter, someone fleeing domestic violence seeking a safe place to stay or a renter on the brink of eviction searching for rental assistance.

Those who pick up the phone are some of the closest things Clark County has to emergency first responders for homelessness. The Housing Hotline is a one-of-its-kind resource in Clark County. It connects residents to resources and offers a solution amid the rapidly growing housing crisis.

In 2024, nearly 9,000 people experienced some form of homelessness in the county, according to a report from Council for the Homeless. More than half said it was their first time being homeless. With the growing need, residents are increasingly relying on the hotline when they have nowhere else to turn.

Last year, staff answered about 70,000 calls from Clark County residents. Guy Hardy, the housing hotline’s supervisor, said the team averages 130 to 180 calls a day.

“The hotline is the entry point. Sometimes, we’re the first people they speak to about their situation and connect with so it’s important to have positive conversations with people navigating the system … and help people connect the dots to resources,” Hardy said.

Meeting needs

The hotline began as part of the Shelter Clearing House, a small team that worked to get people into shelter.

“It’s transitioned into holding a much bigger role in kind of accessing the larger homeless response system,” Sunny Wonder, chief operating officer of Council for the Homeless, said.

Hardy began working at the Housing Hotline during the height of the pandemic after a career as a 911 operator.

During the peak of the pandemic, the hotline saw a drastic surge in calls, a majority regarding evictions, rent hikes and fears of losing housing. During this time, federal rental assistance dollars were available, which gave the council tools to meet people’s growing needs, Wonder said.

The hotline became a lifeline during the pandemic, Hardy and Wonder said. But when the funding ended, the need for help didn’t.

“We have too few resources to meet the needs,” Wonder said.

Wonder said the council tries to verify that the resources where the hotline refers callers are actually available.

“We don’t want to cause harm to that agency operating the resource, but we also don’t want to cause harm to the individual who is saying, ‘You told me to go here, but they don’t have anything left for me,’ ” Wonder said. “It can be a double-edged sword. … With limited resources, how can we get folks answers? How can we offer transparency as quickly as possible?”

Hardy said finding resources has also been more challenging lately.

“One of the challenges is politics. That has been very concerning — fewer resources becoming available, and things that were available to us no longer being available and navigating around it,” Hardy said.

Hardy said call takers don’t rush the person on the other end of the line, but the team has also been taking steps to improve wait times.

“Sitting on hold when you’re navigating a crisis can be really harmful,” Wonder said.

The job can be emotionally taxing.

“You have people sharing their most vulnerable experiences, and some of it is hard to hear. You might get three or four of those calls in a row, and it can really get to you,” Hardy said. “But it means a lot to us to be able to connect and talk with people.”

Each call brings its own story. Hotline workers often don’t get closure on what happened to the person on the other end.

But the work is worth it, the staff said.

“At the end of the day, something we can always offer in that moment is a lot of heart and care for the folks that are calling,” Wonder said.

Mia Ryder-Marks; 360-735-4547; [email protected]

About the project: Community Funded Journalism is a project from The Columbian and the Local Media Foundation that is funded by community member donations, including the Ed and Dollie Lynch Fund, Patricia, David and Jacob Nierenberg and the Mason E. Nolan Charitable Fund. The Columbian maintains editorial control over all content. For more information, visit columbian.com/cfj.