Get the Help You Need @ Skokie Public Library

In early April we heard about large groups of individuals queueing up outside the Chicago Public Library main library and branches before they opened. They had heard a rumor that the lottery for Section 8 (affordable) housing was starting soon and that they could find information at their local library. When the librarians tried to find out the source of the information, they ran into a brick wall. The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) was not giving out any information. At the same time, a marketing and communications company working for the CHA contacted social service professionals to let them know that the housing applications were indeed going to be available soon, but asked them to keep the information confidential. One enterprising librarian from the Evanston Public Library got hold of the information and sent it out to all in her network. It arrived at our library without any mention of confidentiality. Since we too had been getting phone calls and visits from individuals asking about the lottery, we decided to make the information public on our community website, SkokieNet.org. It went live on April 11th . And we started to get a steady flow of calls, emails, and visits to the website. The story we put on our website stated that the Rentbetter lottery program would be starting on April 17th, and we listed a phone number and website that would be available from that opening day until the cutoff on May 15th. 40,000 individuals from the hundreds of thousands who applied during that time would have their names entered in a lottery for Section 8 housing. April 17th arrived and we were ready. Skokie librarian Toby Greenwalt had downloaded the forms in English, Spanish, Russian, and Polish along with the Frequently Asked Questions page from the Rentbetter website. Copies of these were saved to staff files in case the website became unavailable. Individuals started calling when we opened at 9am. They called both the Reference Desk line and the SkokieNet Librarian's phone that was listed on our website. In addition to handling the hundreds of phone calls and providing hundreds of paper copies, we also used email and Instant Messenger to send copies (over 25 emails; over 10 IMs) to individuals who requested them, and the usage of our website exploded! In all, we received over 4,000 hits on the article about the Rentbetter lottery that day. When people called to say they were having trouble downloading the forms, we put an easily accessible copy on our server so that we could direct them there as well. This became critically important when the CHA's Rentbetter website crashed as a result of the thousands of visitors they received that day. 69 individuals wrote comments on our website, including this one: " THANK GOD FOR A SECOND CHANCE! MY NAME IS DORIS ARMSTRONG, I'M DISABLED DUE TO HEART AND BACK. I WAS CHOSEN FOR THE LAST LOTTERY BUT HAD JUST HAD SURGERY AND WAS UNABLE TO FIND A DECENT PLACE TO LIVE. I'M SO GRATEFUL YOU ARE HAVING THIS LOTTERY. I'M NOT GOING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT NOT FINDING THE APPLICATION ON-LINE, I UNDERSTAND WE ALL CAN GET ONE FROM THE LIBRARY. THANKS AGAIN AND GOD BLESS..... " All told, we helped thousands of individuals that day, first by finding the information and providing it online and then by making the forms easily accessible to all, whether in the library, by phone, on the internet, via email or instant messaging. The Skokie Public Library @ Your Service! Submitted by the SkokieNet Librarian