At Fortell, we're thrilled to begin our collaboration with Solo Por Hoy, a Puerto Rico-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting vulnerable individuals and families. With wide-ranging programmes that address housing, food, clothing, substance abuse, domestic and gender-based violence, HIV, and more, the organisation is focused on delivering holistic services and ensuring fair housing access to empower the communities it serves.

This partnership grew out of meaningful conversations with their team and Executive Director, Belinda Hill. We learned that Solo Por Hoy serves a bilingual population who frequently call their centres for information about shelters and other services. A key priority for the organisation is to handle a higher volume of calls from individuals experiencing homelessness, including during night hours, and to encourage more people to reach out for help.

To support this mission, we'll be deploying conversational agents that answer phone calls, share information, and assist with the screening and eligibility process, particularly after hours or when all lines are busy. This will help extend the capacity and reach of their dedicated human team.

The agents, built using advanced natural language processing and multilingual voice synthesis, are designed to handle high volumes of calls simultaneously, guide users through structured conversations, and collect key information for screening and referrals. This will ensure that no call goes unanswered, even outside office hours.

During their third annual convention, held in Puerto Rico in June, Solo Por Hoy announced this partnership with Fortell. "In these times, there are many challenges in supporting people experiencing homelessness (...). This requires creativity and access to new technologies that can support us. That is why we will soon be introducing virtual assistants developed with artificial intelligence that, with image and voice, will respond to requests at any time, seven days a week, even during emergencies," said Belinda Hill.

Regarding this partnership, our CEO, Rob Symes, expressed: "Artificial intelligence has the potential to fundamentally improve our ability to support vulnerable communities. We can free up time for people to focus on what matters most: helping."

This collaboration has been echoed by different local media like Noticel, El Nuevo Día, and Ey Boricua. In El Nuevo Día, Puerto Rico's leading newspaper, Hill explained that these agents will not replace human contact, but rather extend the reach of nonprofits without losing empathy and help ease the burden on overextended staff.