The UWATX Navigation Center has published its annual report of trends in community needs for social services. A few key highlights:
- The UWATX Navigation Center answered 342,000 calls in 2012 while maintaining a 1 minute wait time and customer satisfaction scores between 96 to 98 percent among different services.
- Callers for 2-1-1 Texas, a partnership with Texas Health and Human Services Commission, skewed heavily based on gender: 70 percent female to 19 percent male (11 percent did not report their gender).
- Calls for food pantries increased 55 percent from 2011 to 2012. Food insecurity continues to be a challenge for our community and, perhaps surprisingly, children continue to be among those most affected – one out of four children in Travis County lives in poverty.
- Household expenses, including electric bill payment (13,879 calls), rent assistance (13,659 calls) and low-income housing (7,574 calls) remained among the top needs. This matches community trends: the percent of Austin households that pay more than 30 percent for housing increased by 3 percent from 2009 to 2010.
- Just two years into the partnership, the UWATX Navigation Center made 76 percent of all appointments for Central Health, giving Austinites easier access to medical assistance programs.
Download the full report or check out our infographic below for more highlights:
You wouldn’t hpapen to know of anywhere where donated books or something could be sent would you? When you go down on Tuesday maybe you could let us know:) People in shelters could use something to do.