Social services hub launched in El Paso

The City of El Paso, Texas has unveiled what it describes as “a one-stop online portal for centralised social services delivery”.

Via El Paso Helps, residents experiencing homelessness or other crises will be able to connect directly to live agents and 24/7 street outreach, including via video. The city hopes to expand the site for more residents and services in the future.

Nicole Ferrini, Sustainability & Climate Officer, City of El Paso, called it “truly unprecedented in the way it prioritises direct access to another human being facilitated by technology”.

According to the city, one of the biggest challenges for vulnerable residents is the inability to easily access and navigate resources for basic needs.

El Paso Helps is in collaboration with non-profit partners and Cisco, facilitated by Webex and Cisco’s networking infrastructure.

Digital transformation

Ferrini told Cities Today: “Gone are the days in El Paso when individuals must drive or commute to a physical centre to obtain social services support in person. The delivery of hybrid services is never going away thanks to the digital transformation accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the power of technology, and our longstanding partnership with Cisco.

“El Paso Helps goes beyond providing information to community members. The portal facilitates immediate local connections to providers, video case management, and follow-up with reporting and analytics. Additionally, El Paso Helps offers 24/7 street outreach case managers who can provide onsite assistance to help individuals in crisis obtain services.”

The live help portal connects people with agencies including Amistad for street outreach, the Opportunity Center for the Homeless for temporary emergency shelter, United Way Resilience Navigators for help with food, safe places and COVID-19, and Endeavors for permanent housing assistance. Emergence Health Network provides access to mental health counselling, addiction services and veteran care.

El Paso Helps is based on the Delta Welcome Center pilot programme, which was launched during the pandemic and centralised services for unhoused community members to access social services. In two years, the Center served 5,000 people, the city said.

Digital access

Ferrini said that around three-quarters of unhoused people have a cell phone and that this is consistent with observations from local nonprofits. She noted that the Opportunity Center for the Homeless works directly with mobile phone providers to equip unhoused residents with a phone and the city’s Digital El Paso free Wi-Fi also provides connectivity.

“Cell phones are certainly a more reliable, albeit imperfect, way of reaching the unhoused as opposed to relying on physical transportation,” Ferrini commented. “That is part of why this portal is so innovative.”

The city is also exploring the potential role of kiosks in subsequent stages of El Paso Helps.

Gary DePreta, Vice President for State, Local Governments and Education at Cisco, said Webex’s features make it ideal to underpin a service such as El Paso Helps.

“Webex has made it its mission to power inclusive collaboration to not only connect people over video, but to ensure democratisation of access and use for everyone regardless of their situation or setting,” he told Cities Today.

He added that to reduce the risk of unwanted actors intercepting data, Webex uses various security frameworks, including end-to-end encryption, and that Webex’s cloud native delivery is essential for El Paso Helps since it connects residents with support wherever they are without the need for dedicated infrastructure.

Community pulse

While El Paso Helps is currently focused on El Pasoans experiencing an immediate crisis, the city plans to expand this.

“El Paso Helps empowers both government and social services organisations to make increasingly data-driven decisions,” said Ferrini. “Because access to social services is centralised in a single portal, the city can not only have a better pulse on where the community has the greatest needs, but over time, we have every intention of continuing to increase services and align resources to drive the greatest impact.”