22 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY NOVEMBER 13-19, 2025 www.montereycountynow.com mirror, shave, talk to people.” His case manager, Fatima Torres, knows exactly what Myers is talking about—she’s been there. Torres’ path to changing her life happened through referrals, the old-fashioned way. It started after multiple DUIs and prison time, when she confided in a colleague that she was having a tough time and experiencing anxiety; the colleague suggested she go to Sun Street Centers. That set her on a path from one helpful service to another helpful service, and Torres followed up on each step. She went to Planned Parenthood Mar Monte for a medical appointment, and a standard questionnaire revealed she was a survivor of domestic violence. “I disclosed a lot of things,” she says. “It was like opening a pandora’s box of options.” They referred her to another nonprofit, YWCA Monterey County, where she got assistance filing for a restraining order. She got help renewing documents related to her immigration status. She got help securing custody of her daughter. Counseling helped her reframe who she was and discover confidence in herself. And she’s still getting help; through the California Department of Rehabilitation, she’s getting a laptop and support toward a bachelor’s degree. Torres is bilingual (her other language is Spanish—“I speak it, I read it, I dance it”) and she intends to pursue a degree in interpretation. Torres navigated her way through the analogue referral system starting in 2019, following through on one agency’s suggestion to go to another then another. It took her out of a period of what she describes as hiding to the present in which she is thriving. “If I would’ve known there was something like [the Smart Referral Network], just imagine what could’ve been,” she says. “It could’ve saved me time. But maybe I had to go through that journey myself to know that was the case.” That awareness makes Torres a big user of and advocate for the Smart Referral Network. She meets a client like Myers and clicks through all of the services that might be relevant. He may be eligible for housing assistance but unlikely to follow up himself. A client may need legal aid, but never pursue it on their own. If they consent for Torres to share their information, she can do so with a simple computer interface. She says it’s more efficient than word-of-mouth, and it works better—the burden is on the agency, not the client, to follow up. Myers got referrals for dental work at Pearl Dentistry; discounted bus passes from MST; mental health counseling; housing; and educational assistance at the Department of Rehabilitation, which he will use toward his truck driver’s license goal. Myers got connected to his plumbing job through word of mouth, but Torres has found referrals to the Salvation Army useful for clients who don’t see a path into the workforce and need résumé help. “They were really surprised that they put together something so professional based on scratch paper,” she says. “It was a big deal.” A technology-based referral network that includes sophisticated privacy and cybersecurity features to protect sensitive client data is, of course, a business, and business is competitive. Increasingly, for-profit companies are getting into the space. The Smart Referral Network is licensed for a fee to United Ways in two other counties now, but they may develop their own similar systems. Even if it’s not the Smart Referral Network developed locally that takes off, it is providing a template for a social service providers everywhere across the country. “It could become a national model,” McCann says. “Monterey County may be leading the charge for the whole country.” But even locally, there are challenges. The Smart Referral Network works best when there is widespread adoption. Madfis says CCAH backing out to develop its own equivalent tool was a big setback. (In a statement, CCAH Chief Technology Officer Cecil Newton says, “We remain committed to supporting Monterey County residents by connecting them to vital resources that promote healthier lives and welcome continued collaboration with United Way that serve to meet our members’ needs.” The group also contributed a $50,000 grant toward developing a chatbot component to the Smart Referral Network.) And while part of the benefit is that it allows service providers to “close the loop” and monitor whether follow-up happened, clients may still decline services. At least this technology enables a case worker to monitor that another agency followed up. Still, the rate of closed-loop referrals is just 51 percent, according to United Way’s data. At nonprofit Community Human Services, which operates shelters Casa de Noche Buena in Seaside and Shuman Hearthouse in Monterey, Evangelina Ochoa says the tool helps case managers verify that other agencies followed up with a client. “Picking up the phone, we don’t see the end result,” she says. “We don’t know if they made that connection.” (CHS case managers routinely refer clients to Monterey County Office of Education, Central Coast Center for Independent Living and Valley Health Associates, among others.) Even if the Smart Referral Network or similar tools do become the norm, with more agencies opting in and a higher closed-loop rate, Madfis is under no illusions that such a tool can fix all of the root causes and bring prosperity to all—the underlying societal issues these organizations are addressing remain. “Most jobs don’t pay enough,” Madfis says, noting Monterey County’s leading industries in agriculture and hospitality. “Until we have a more robust economy, we are just stacking chairs on the Titanic.” McCann, a Brit, has lived in the U.S. for 27 years and still finds the scale of homelessness shocking. “Why has America got 1,000 billionaires and 700,000 homeless people? That is a moral crime. Every one of us should wake up every day, look in the mirror and feel ashamed,” he says. “I am in this because I hate homelessness. It is a moral crime. I want to solve this.” A technological portal might not end homelessness, but it does create accountability among agencies aiming to solve it. And it surely does something for someone—the story of George Myers may end differently because he decided to walk in the door of Sun Street Centers and then got connected to much more. “I am tired of being incarcerated,” he says. “I am sick and tired of being sick all the time.” He is set to graduate on Nov. 21, then hopes to land a spot in Sun Street’s sober living housing while he remains on the Section 8 waitlist. One resource opens up another resource, as it did for Torres, now Myers’ case manager. “It’s a domino effect, how things happen,” Torres says. “You never know who you are going to encounter. If those resources would not have been there for me, I would never be where I’m at.” Josh Madfis is trying to get more entities—school districts and other government organizations, faith communities and nonprofits—to utilize the Smart Referral Network. “If there isn’t collaboration it’s chaos.” DANIEL DREIFUSS
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