Screenshot of the Our Calling smartphone app
We often see people standing on street corners with cardboard signs or approaching us in parking lots to ask for money. Although we might want to help, we also have to wonder: What is the best way?
That’s why Our Calling, the East Dallas-based organization that helps the homeless, created a smartphone app to help us answer that question.
Instead of handing over a few bucks, the app enables you to have a conversation with the folks you encounter, find out what kind of help they need, and then have access to the resources available in Dallas.
“It’s a fantastic tool,” says Jonathan Habashy, who works in development at Our Calling, “and a truly innovative way to equip people all over Dallas County to have meaningful, helpful interactions with homeless individuals anywhere those interactions take place.”
We wrote about Our Calling last summer, about the facility and resources they provide folks throughout Dallas.
Every week Our Calling sends out a search-and-rescue team to go to more than 1,200 locations in Dallas County where they’re likely to find homeless men, women and children in need. They offer food, water and other emergency supplies to the homeless individuals they encounter.
Along with that, the facility in East Dallas was designed to be a sort of “café for the homeless,” Habashy explains. It provides a welcoming place for hundreds of men and women to gather during the day.
Our Calling serves lunch and provides people with necessities like clothing, socks, shoes, blankets and hygiene items, such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo and conditioner. It also has a washer and dryer, and a shower available for guests to use.
One of the things Our Calling is most passionate about is partnering with other organizations that can provide services it doesn’t provide and encouraging other organizations to work together as well. That’s one of the ways the app helps, by listing more than 200 resources by location, category and qualification.
Learn more about Our Calling on the website or about the new smartphone app.
