MobileActive.org

Mobile Phone Use Among Homeless People

For 40,000 people a year across the U.S., voicemail is a lifeline. The Community Voice Mail (CVM) program, started in 1991, has helped provide over 40,000 homeless and low-income individuals each year with access to voicemail in 41 U.S. cities. For many CVM clients, their voicemail is their connection to a job, an apartment, and relationships with teachers, doctors, or social service agencies. (MobileActive wrote about CVM and similar programs here). However, as mobile phones have become ubiquitous across the United States -- even in the hands of homeless people -- CVM has questioned the impact and relationship of mobile phones to their traditional voicemail model.

MobileActive sat down with Steve Albertson, Director of New Initiatives at Community Voicemail, for a chat.