A decade ago, nonprofit leaders in Arizona’s most populous county boasted that they had created the Amazon of homeless service systems. Families in crisis would no longer have to contact a dozen agencies in search of shelter or housing. A single system could point them to help.

But for all the hype, this system has become a dead end for many families. A 2023 evaluation found 94% of people who were assessed for housing help by the system didn’t receive it. And that didn’t account for parents who were unable to connect with a worker to see if they qualified for assistance.

Families say it hasn’t improved.

In interviews, 30 families that are homeless told ProPublica that calling the hotline, meeting with outreach workers or showing up at shelters rarely results in offers of help. Some families said they called 211 multiple times without being connected to the homeless response system for families, known as the Family Housing Hub. Others, who said they were sleeping in cars or outdoors, said they couldn’t get a spot on the waitlist for shelter.

The system has returned to what it was a decade ago, with families calling as many shelters as they can, repeating the very situation the hub was intended to fix.

Those who did make it onto the hub’s waitlist said they were left guessing how long it would take to get help. Some said operators told them to sleep in their cars.

Vanessa Lopez said she experienced this frustration after leaving a hostile relationship in the spring. While she and her two children stayed with a friend, Lopez said she repeatedly contacted 211, which functions as a referral service for the hub, hoping it would lead to shelter for her family.

Her friend eventually asked them to leave. Overwhelmed by the stress of not knowing where to take her family, Lopez took a leave from her job. By then, she said, she’d called 211 at least five times.

Yet no matter how dire her situation became, it still took months to get on the waitlist for shelter. During one call she said she broke down in tears, frustrated that others seemed to get help but she could not. She wondered if she needed to be addicted to drugs to receive assistance.

“It’s not me telling you no,” she said the operator told her. “It’s the system.”

Monique Lopez, the CEO of United Methodist Outreach Ministries, known as UMOM, which runs the Family Housing Hub and the shelter waitlist, acknowledged the frustrations of people like Vanessa Lopez (no relation). But before UMOM offers callers shelter or a spot on the waitlist, the organization first tries to help them find other options.

“We don’t start the conversation with, ‘Hey, do you want to get on the shelter waitlist?’” Monique Lopez said. “It really is ‘Let’s try to figure your situation out first.’”

Lopez attributed some frustrations to the number of organizations offering assistance through the hub. Each shelter has its own rules, and some families may not meet the requirements of every program.

To address the confusion, UMOM updated its website to provide more information about the homeless response system for families, she said. The federally funded system, known as Coordinated Entry, mandates that providers use an assessment to prioritize scarce housing.

“It’s not me telling you no. It’s the system.”

But families told ProPublica that the process in Maricopa County often leaves them........

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