Community Voice Mail is a simple, reliable solution to one of the biggest obstacles homeless and other displaced people are faced with. You see, without having a phone it's difficult to find a job, housing, or healthcare. Community Voice Mail recognizes that if more people had access to a constant telephone number they could get their lives back together in a time efficient, embarrassment-free way. Enrolling for a phone number through Community Voice Mail generally takes less than three minutes, and includes dialing into Community Voice Mail, recording a greeting, and creating a password. From there employers, doctors, teachers, and other family members can call in and leave messages that allow users to stay connected to the rest of society. Once the account has been activated, users can check their messages from any touch-tone phone, and a Community Voice Mail (CVM) number looks and acts just like a real phone number so no one has to know that you're homeless or phoneless. Once the user is no longer in need of their account, the phone number gets recycled to a new user. By using this method, a single voice mailbox can be used two to three times each year â€" benefiting more people at once than traditional phone numbers ever could.

This innovative and much needed idea started in Seattle in 1991 after it was realized that homeless and displaced people often remain that way because they don't have a secure, reliable communication link with the world around them. CVM employees brought their business model to Active Voice (a Seattle based voicemail company) a year later and managed to get a voicemail system donated that helped 145 over the course of 6 months. Of the 145 people initially served, 70% found a job within 2 months. With a successful beginning behind them, CVM applied for and won the $100,000 Harvard/Ford Foundation Innovators Government Award in 1993, and used the money to install their system in other cities around the U.S. Last year alone CVM reached over 44,000 people in 37 cities nationwide, and they have plans to add another 30 sites by 2008.

Community Voice Mail is working to end the debilitating epidemic of homelessness one customer at a time. They know that if people in need are given resources amazing things can happen. Their model of making meaning through a basic form of communication is one that inspires innovation and hope in technology industries from internet communications to electricity, and illustrates the importance of taking the time to think outside the box.