Dane County’s homeless population has a new resource available to help them address their basic day-to-day needs, along with assist them in getting back on their feet.
The new mobile website, launched February 22, is called Link-Dane. Modeled after a similar mobile website called Link-SF that launched in San Francisco in 2014, Link-Dane provides the most up-to-date 2-1-1 information on basic needs such as food, shelter, medical care, and technology access to the people who need it most — all from an Internet-enabled cellphone.
All a user needs to do is go to the Link-Dane website at link-dane.co on their cellphone or computer, click on any one of several listed basic needs and they’ll see a listing of nearby services complete with hours of operation and location.
Spearheaded by the United Way of Dane County and Zendesk Inc., a cloud-based customer support platform, Link-Dane is an innovative digital extension of the United Way of Dane County’s 2-1-1 call center, an information and referral service that connects people to a variety of resources such as help paying bills, housing search assistance, food pantries, and community clinics.
Zendesk employees volunteered their personal time to help develop the mobile app, which will serve a homeless population in greater Madison number nearly 60,000.
Software engineers from Zendesk built the mobile site in partnership with United Way of Dane County’s 2-1-1 call center, which provided the data and information for the portal.
Previously, local residents could only access this list of resources via United Way of Dane County’s 2-1-1 Call Center, which is staffed 24/7. Local residents could also search the 2-1-1 database online at unitedwaydaneco.org.
However, Link-Dane provides a digital avenue that allows users to get to the assistance they need quickly, anonymously, and from the convenience of their mobile device.
For the homeless, being connected to the mobile web for critical resources is incredibly important. According to a study in the Journal of Urban Health, 62% of homeless youth have cell phones and consider them as important as having food to eat.
The code for the original Link-SF mobile site was meant to be an open source platform to create an adaptable model for any city in the U.S. In Madison, the idea to build Link-Dane began as a community-wide effort with discussions by various community partners, including Zendesk and the United Way.
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