Voice mail for homeless people

[Doug Schuler]

FYI,

Here is the press release from a Seattle orgaization that helps 
provide voice mail for homeless and phoneless people.  Their
homepage is on SCN: http://www.scn.org/ip/cti.

-- Doug


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE				contact:  Patricia Barry
January 5, 1997 					(206) 441-7872,
Ext. 150
							cvm at avoice.com
							

Community Voice Mail To Get Biggest Working Assets Long Distance
Donation in History

Imagine trying to find work or housing or staying in touch with
 loved ones without a phone.  


SEATTLE --  Seattle-based Community Technology Institute (CTI), creator
of Community Voice Mail (CVM), will receive more than $100,000 donated
by Working Assets Funding Service.

Working Assets, the San Francisco-based long-distance telephone and
credit card company, asks customers to "round up" their telephone bills
for donations to causes they select.  Through a special appeal for
Community Voice Mail, Working Assets generated the largest round-up
donation in the company's 11-year history.

Specifically, the donation will go to Community Technology Institute,
which provides training and technical support for replicating Community
Voice Mail across the nation.  CTI will use the money to support and
strengthen the Community Voice Mail Federation, which now serves more
than 20,000 poor and homeless people in 26 U.S. cities, including
Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, Houston, San Francisco, Detroit, and
Boston.

"This donation shows that there's a tremendous amount of support for
helping people to help themselves.  We've worked hard to give the
homeless and phoneless a way to connect themselves to jobs and services
by using voicemail technology.  Community Voice Mail works extremely
well, and the donation from Working Assets will spread this access even
further" said Bard Richmond, Chair of CTI Board of Directors and
Chairman and CEO of Active Voice Corporation.

Community Voice Mail operates through community-owned computers that
mimic home answering machines, enabling clients to receive calls back
from potential employers and landlords.  They systems are made possible
in part by software and hardware donations from Active Voice and
Dialogic Corporations.

In 1993, Community Voice Mail won a Harvard-Ford Foundation award for
innovative programs.  In January 1997, CVM leaders from 24 cities
convened in Seattle to form the National Community Voice Mail
Federation, the only providers of basic telecommunications for people
who are poor or homeless in this country.

In 1997 alone, more than 12,000 people met goals of finding employment
and housing, receiving health care and social services, as well as
creating a safe haven from domestic violence.  Case managers in social
service agencies report that Community Voice Mail can cut in half the
amount of time they spend helping clients get back on their feet.

-end-
	
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