If you're in Benton, Washington or Madison County and you dial 211 today, it will sound a lot like it did when you dialed 211 three years ago. But logistically, there have been some changes. Earlier this month, Hark acquired Arkansas 211 to handle all elements of the free service. Josh Hall is the executive director at Hark. He joined me in the Bruce and Ann Applegate News Studio Two earlier this week. He says the integration of 211 and Hark means more Arkansans will get connected faster and more efficiently.
Hall: I'm reminded of a story that there was a lady who came to our office. She showed up at our door in tears. And as we started to really understand her situation, we realized that we were the 14th stop for her in her trying to solve some of the issues that she has. And so, you know, you think about the time that she spent, the energy, the gas money — all that. And so I really encourage folks that if you aren't sure what is available in northwest Arkansas for your situation, call 211. We understand the landscape. We understand what's out there, what's available, what's not available. And we can really be that resource to help you navigate where to go and what that's going to look like for you.
Moore: So it moved from United Way to you guys being in control of it now. Why was it important for Hark and Excellerate Foundation to be the ones running 211?
Hall: United Way of Northwest Arkansas has done an incredible job with 211 over the years. And as they decided to transition it out of their organization, it just made sense for us to take on that role here in northwest Arkansas. Hark has been around doing resourcing-type things since about 2017. In that time, we've worked with over 26,000 individuals in northwest Arkansas. We've addressed over 132,000 needs and made over 268,000 referrals. As we already partnered with United Way in the 211 space — traditionally they operated over the entire state, and when you called 211 in northwest Arkansas, you were routed to us through a partnership we had with them — we just kind of became the natural place for this to be housed. And what it's really allowing us to do is aligning this kind of trusted national entry point in 211 with a locally built, data-driven coordination system that already existed here in northwest Arkansas.
Moore: In a world of ChatGPT and Google AI, where you just put in a question and it answers it for you, why do we need a phone number like 211 now?
Hall: The best way I can describe it is: when someone's in crisis, they shouldn't have to navigate a maze. Hark really helps turn that confusion into clarity. When you have a need, it's really confusing to figure out what's available out there. A lot of the sources can be unreliable sometimes. You may find yourself going down a road where an organization doesn't exist anymore, or you don't know what's available. The great thing about what we do is anyone has access to 211 and Hark — it's completely free to the community. And when you call in, you're talking to an actual person who's here in northwest Arkansas and really understands the landscape of the resources that are available, and what's not available. Those things change a lot. Our team of community liaisons uses the community's most robust map of resources that we build, we maintain, and we update. We have over 3,800 referrals that we can make in the three counties here in northwest Arkansas. Our team is going to help figure out how to assess the situation you're in and connect those individuals to those available resources. Not only that, our team is going to follow up with you to see, hey, how was it? Were you able to make it to that resource? What barriers did you encounter? And how do we help facilitate that connection alongside you? It's a high-touch process where you're able to have an expert in resourcing in northwest Arkansas in your corner, walking alongside you.
Moore: One of the other things that might be a selling point compared to ChatGPT is confidentiality.
Hall: Absolutely. Not only are we free, we're confidential. We don't share your information outside of just the conversation that you're having with our team. It really is a trusted place where you can get the best information in the most efficient and effective way.
Moore: Let's say someone's curious about what kind of services are available through 211. Can you give me some examples of what a typical call looks like, or what people are asking for?
Hall: It really covers the entire spectrum. I wouldn't say there's a typical caller, just in the sense that we really believe that every person's situation is unique to them. Every plan that we create is unique to that individual. These aren't just a canned resource list for this, that and the other — it is very specialized to this individual. When we think about our map of community resources, we have about 10 what we call social determinants of health. That's going to cover food, housing, education, employment, financial assistance — you name it. From there, about 50 different need categories that we can help on, and about 3,800 referrals that we can make. While we see things that are consistently at the top of the list — help paying for housing is the number one need in northwest Arkansas, then financial assistance, food — we really do see every need area needing to be addressed at some point.
Moore: Do you hope that there comes a point in time — maybe 10, 20 years from now — where you don't need 211 for financial assistance or these sorts of needs? That we're in such a place through the work of your resources and other capacities that maybe you can be obsolete?
Hall: I will say in our line of work, we are always trying to work ourselves out of a job. That is ultimately the goal. And one of the things that I think is unique about Hark — and really combining this Arkansas 211 and Hark model — is that Hark is definitely addressing the individual needs of our community, but really importantly, we're also collecting data about what's going on in our community. What are people getting connected to? What are they not getting connected to? Why are they not getting connected? And so what that does is really helps us think about how we take those insights and operationalize that data — how do we direct our resources in our community, how do we think about where those gaps are and how we think about system change as a part of that? Long term, what we hope to see with Hark — this is the model we use with Excellerate Foundation — there's a lot of how we do our decision making and what we're investing our dollars in, whether that's housing or upskilling individuals to higher wage-earning positions, because those are a lot of the needs that we see. We really hope that we can take this information and start to use it to inform how we're directing funds and directing efforts in the community, because we want to solve these systemic issues that are contributing to some of these things and hopefully solve these problems at a community level, not just the individual level.
Moore: Have you ever been stumped on a call?
Hall: Sure. There are situations where the resource just isn't available. And one of the things that we talk about is sometimes that's the best information that you can get — so that we're not spending more time and resources trying to chase something that just truly doesn't exist right now in our community. And one of the things that our team does is we don't just stop at that. We work really hard to get creative in uncovering additional needs or saying, hey, this resource isn't available right now, but we could unlock things over here or here or over here that could maybe relieve some of the pressure. So even if you think there's no hope for a situation, I still encourage you to call and talk to our team. We may be able to figure something out or dig something up or uncover something that could be helpful.
Moore: When you think about when you started with Hark eight years ago and where Hark is now, where have you seen changes, where have you seen improvements, and where have you seen things where change needs to continue to happen?
Hall: I think that we have as a community evolved over time. Just in my time at Hark, we've consistently seen affordable housing be a big issue. There are significant efforts underway on how to address that. As we've seen these big issues, our community has stepped in through lots of different organizations who are trying to address that, and progress is being made. There's still a lot of ground to make up, but it is being worked on. There's some hope that that will continue to be addressed and can take some of that pain point out of our community. We see a lot of organizations step up and funding going to organizations who are providing really important food resources, things like that. There's been a lot of work, a lot of understanding about our community, and there are things in place now that are starting to make a difference. But I think the better we can understand those things, the more tactical we can be as a community on how we address them.
Josh Hall is the executive director of Hark. We spoke earlier this week.
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