Every year, United Way 211 assists over 100,000 Cuyahoga County residents. Each person is seeking help with specific needs: utility assistance; food; housing; etc. At United Way of Greater Cleveland, we track these needs and use machine learning to correlate changes in needs to community-wide factors like weather or temporary assistance programs.
Doing so helps us identify what types of events trigger increases in calls for help, as well as factors that are reducing need. By better understanding what causes changes in need, we can help guide solutions and inform policy decisions.
Housing and utilities have consistently been the top needs of Cuyahoga County residents over the past six years. Our analysis shows that fluctuations in these needs were significantly affected by weather conditions, utility assistance programs, and COVID-19 response programs.
United Way 211 serves as a vital connection to community resources for our neighbors in Cuyahoga, Geauga, and Ross counties.
Our social service professionals have extensive Community Resource Navigation training, which allows them to break down complex situations and help diverse callers find the resources they need 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Housing and utilities are the top needs in Cuyahoga County
Top Needs by Category, 2023
Year after year, United Way 211 callers’ greatest needs are housing & shelter, utilities, food, legal services, and material goods. Housing and utilities are usually the top two needs across all people who reach out to 211.
The number of callers with housing or utility needs has fluctuated a lot over the past six years, however. Our goal is to understand what factors are driving these changes in need:
Housing and utility needs over time
Our model explains over 78% of changes in housing and utility needs over time
Our United Way data team uses machine learning to determine the significance of community-wide factors in explaining variations in housing and utility needs.
By analyzing call data over six years (2018-2024), we identified three key factors that strongly correlate to housing and utility needs: weather; assistance related to the COVID-19 pandemic; and utility assistance programs.
Our model explains 78% of the changes in daily housing needs and 83% in daily utility needs across all people who contact 211. These findings include changes in community need due to general factors, such as typical weather and seasonal utility assistance. They also include the effects of specific events—such as unseasonably cold weather days—and policies—such as the COVID-19-era economic relief programs.
By controlling for the time of year and day of the week, we can see that:
- Weather Conditions account for 5% of the variation in housing and utility need. When it is cold, more people need utility assistance; when it is hot, fewer people do.
- Utility Assistance Programs that provide winter and summer support account for a 7% reduction in housing and utility needs.
- COVID-19 Responses such as eviction stoppage, rental assistance, and economic payments account for a 13% reduction in housing and utility needs.
Why is this information important?
These findings show that despite the variation in individual circumstances of United Way 211 callers, community-wide factors such as weather and policies are the most important drivers of requests for housing and utility assistance.
How can data about 211 callers’ needs be useful? A recent example is after severe storms in August 2024 left hundreds of thousands of Northeast Ohio residents without power for up to a week. Our 211 team saw a nearly 300% spike in calls for food after the power was restored. We shared this statistic with our partners at Cuyahoga County, and it helped the county approve more funding to meet the high demand for emergency food.
Our analysis of housing and utility needs has suggested several questions and avenues for further exploration, such as:
- Are existing seasonal utility assistance programs sufficient to meet need? How could they be adjusted to reduce need by more than 7%?
- If severe weather impacts need, how can solutions account for anticipated increases in extreme weather?
- What underlying issues not yet captured by this model are driving the need for utility assistance? How can we address those underlying issues?
- How can our solutions have a larger impact beyond reducing utility need?
- How can we solve these problems sustainably?
We share these insights and questions as an open invitation to learn with us, ask questions, contribute, and challenge us. Your feedback is not just welcome, but crucial as we strive to make Greater Cleveland a better place for everyone.
What are we overlooking? What further questions do you have? What do these questions provoke for you? Your feedback and involvement are invaluable.
Send your thoughts and questions to insights@unitedwaycleveland.org
