San Bernardino County's 2-1-1 service was developed with the help of a broad, community-based team, the 211 Advisory Committee, comprised of representatives from the First 5 Commission, the Board of Supervisors, several County departments, Loma Linda University, Cal State San Bernardino and other groups and non-profit organizations.  2-1-1 is a national United Way initiative.

2-1-1 Program Goal

The goal of 2-1-1 is to provide timely, effective access to accurate and comprehensive information and referral for the residents of San Bernardino County, and provide public information support in times of disaster.

History of 2-1-1 San Bernardino

Following a broad coalition of partners that met for more than a year to evaluate its efficacy and make plans to bring the 2-1-1 service to the county, an RFP was written, and Inland Empire United Way was chosen to write the application and build the 2-1-1 system.

A 211 Director was hired in early 2005 and the application was finalized and submitted to the CPUC (The California Public Utilities Commission has jurisdiction for approving applications to provide 2-1-1 service in the state) in the latter part of the year. Approval was received in March of 2006 and full time 2-1-1 service began on September 20, 2006, with funding from United Way, the County of San Bernardino, and First 5. Since then, additional funding streams have been obtained including performing after-hours service for the County’s Behavioural Heath’s Access unit and the 2-1-1’s in Riverside, Fresno, Stanislaus, Sonoma and Mendocino counties.

Unlike many other counties, prior to the advent of 2-1-1, there had never been a comprehensive Information & Referral entity in San Bernardino County. This means that the database of resources had to be created virtually from scratch and has grown to almost 1000 agencies serving San Bernardino County, offering more than 2500 programs of all kinds.

In February of 2012, 211 San Bernardino became the third agency in California to achieve AIIRS (Alliance of Information & Referral Systems) accreditation, joining 211 LA and 211 San Diego.

211 San Bernardino has answered more than 350,000 calls, successfully connecting more than 150,000 individuals and families to the resources they need. Growth continues, eventually reaching an expected 240,000 calls per year. Even though there is not nearly enough help available for callers in the current economy, less than 2% of 2-1-1 callers indicate they will not use the service again.

Thanks to the following 2-1-1 funding partners