Since we just finished 2022, we’re looking at the 12-month totals for the hotline. Last year we shattered all of our call volume records, each of which were set in 2021. Here are 2022’s numbers along with the past records for perspective on how massive the increase was in call volume:
New Calls
- 19,699 (2022, New Record)
- 15,553 (2021, #2 All-Time)
- 15,480 (2014, #3 All-Time)
Follow-up Calls
- 15,325 (2022, New Record)
- 9,602 (2021, #2 All-Time)
- 6,693 (2019, #3 All-Time)
Total Calls
- 35,024 (2022, New Record)
- 25,155 (2021, #2 All-Time)
- 21,930 (2019, #3 All-Time)
There are a lot of ways to look at this increased volume to try to appreciate the increase, but probably the most notable is the Total Calls. HOME Line has been in operation since 1992. For our first 30 years, there are only two years where we took over 20,000 total calls in a year. In 2022? Over 35,000 calls.
Why did people call us this year? In a word—displacement. Actual court evictions or landlords giving tenants a notice to vacate or sizeable rent increases helps explain our massive jump in call volume.
Here are the top 10 reasons for calls in 2022—the first year that repair issues weren’t at the top of this list in HOME Line’s history. The percentages compare 2021’s call totals on these topics:
One new topic we haven’t discussed in past newsletters is the growing importance of HOME Line’s work with tenants who aren’t fluent in or prefer not to use English. We currently have staff that help tenants in Hmong, Somali and Spanish. 2021 was the previous high-call record , which was easily shattered in 2022. You can see the dramatic spike in tenant households that we’ve advised in the last couple of years.
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