Getting Started

Today was my first official day of on my own calling people. I got a call list at 8am with about 22 people on it. With each person, I have to look them up in two seperate data bases and get some background information on them like whether they are eligible for rental assistance and whether they are part of the HUD (housing and urban development?) program. Then I call them on one of two or three available numbers. If they are there I talk to them and see what their current housing situation is...whether they are still living in their damaged home, or if they are living in a trailer, an apartment, or with family or friends. If they need somewhere to live, I pull up a list of rentals in their area and give them telephone numbers of landlords to call to try and rent. If they are in Galveston or Houston though, there aren't any available because everything is gone or being used, so then I have to ask them if they are interested in living in a mobile unit.

I talked to one woman today who said if she kept talking to me she was going to start crying. She sounded so exasperated with the whole experience, which I can understand. I called another man who I never got a hold of. The notes on hims said that he was older and who had been living in his car. He was losing his sight and could not write things down, so when the person before me tried to give him some resources he could not write them down. It is really hard to be on the other end of the phone with these people, because it feels so impersonal and disconnected.

If the person is not there, I have to keep calling them back throughout the day. You have to call each person three time a day if they do not answer. After you get finished with each client, you have to code them according to what their situation is, and that goes into the two databases. At 3pm every day we have to report our numbers to our supervisors and they tally them up and compare them with other teams, etc. That is what we do every day for 10 hours, with two 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch break. The time actually goes by pretty fast when you're calling people all day, but the days are still long, and there is still minimal sunshine in my life. Everyone on my team is in each other's nerves, so that is going to be tough. We are all waking up tomorrow to do PT at 6am, which should also brighten everyone's spirits : )