Google has teamed up with the City of San Francisco to help hundreds of homeless people get back on their feet by providing them with a free lifelong phone number and voicemail service. Project Homeless Connect will allow homeless individuals looking for employment to be able to put a callback number on a job application, and to give health clinics a phone number to receive test results over the phone. This free service will also allow for contacts from friends and family who might not be able to get in touch otherwise.

“How do you communicate as a homeless individual? ” SF Mayor Gavin Newsom asked. “How do you expect your life to turn around if you can’t even get information or if someone can’t even get in touch with you?”

“It just seems exactly like any other voice mail,” said Craig Walker, senior project manager of Google. “There’s no stigma attached to it that ‘hey this is a temporary thing’ or ‘this is an 800 number.’ It’s really just a local number owned by the user.”

and find out how you can get involved with Project Homeless Connect, and help create lasting solutions for San Francisco’s homeless.