Politics

WASHINGTON — There was a fear festering in Dean’s mind even before she found out late February that she and all other VA crisis line responders had been ordered to return to work at their Atlanta satellite office in the coming months.

Still, the news came as a shock. Almost five years earlier, during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, she was sent home to work. Every day, she would wake up early, slip on her headset and start answering calls from distressed veterans.

Dean has taken calls from veterans expressing suicidal ideations and many others experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. Like all other national call center responders, her job is to guide them through their distress.

“Someone’s life can be saved,” Dean said, who was granted the use of a pseudonym in fear of retribution.

The order that Dean and her colleagues received to return to in-person work followed President Donald Trump’s announcement on his first day back in office that federal workers would no longer be allowed to work from home.

In a Feb. 3 statement, then-acting VA Secretary Todd Hunter wrote that, “most VA clinical staff don’t have the luxury of working remotely, and we believe the performance, collaboration and productivity of the department will improve if all VA employees are held to the same standard.”

Sweeping rounds of layoffs at various federal outfits followed, including the VA.

In a statement, VA press secretary Pete Kasperowicz said that current department policy is to bring as many employees back to the office as space permits.

“VA will make accommodations as needed to ensure employees have enough space to work and will always ensure that veterans’ access to benefits and services remains uninterrupted as employees return to in-person work,” he said.

Different agencies have had their own timelines to enforce the return-to-office policy. But come May 5, Dean will have to commute to work again, which could mean two hours each way in snarled traffic.

Even before she was sent home during the pandemic, Dean felt that the work space was too small for its swelling operations.

In her two years in the office, Dean remembers the workforce almost doubling. What started as a single office floor, where about 100 employees crammed into cubicles, expanded to two levels.

“I cannot imagine how we’ve grown since 2020, everybody on one shift reporting to that shift in that same office,” Dean said. “It’s going to be a lot of unanswered calls … it’s going to be a big problem and a delay to services.”

Dean’s story is not unique. Many other veteran crisis line responders were forced to give up remote work after building their lives around the flexibility working from home provided in the wake of the pandemic. There was no reason for them to change that now, some say, with the crisis lines’ workforce continuing to multiply and the number of calls they receive showing no signs of abating.

A 2024 report from the VA Suicide Prevention Program found that since the launch of a new crisis call line in 2022, there was a 22.7% increase in calls per day. The system answered more than 1.6 million calls in those two years.

Today, the crisis line answers more than 60,000 calls each month.

Responders are charged with everything from offering emotional support and guidance to arranging medical assistance during calls with a veteran, sometimes with civilians as well. The lengths of calls can stretch from minutes to hours.

Besides Atlanta, there were two other in-person crisis line agencies across the country before the pandemic — one in Canandaigua, New York, and the other in Topeka, Kansas.

After crisis line operations went remote, there were more opportunities for expansion, according to Erika Alexander, the president of AFGE Local 518 union, which represents about 1,000 crisis line employees in Atlanta.

For one, the VA no longer needed to worry about hiring people who lived far from one of the call centers.

“Our home address became our duty station,” said Alexander, who previously worked as a crisis center responder for eight years.

Carmen, who similarly asked to use a pseudonym in fear of retribution, was among the new round of responders hired in Florida during the pandemic. She comes from a military family and previously worked in social services. So, when the job opportunity arose, she jumped.

“It was perfect. … I didn’t need to leave the house, I got my headset on, and I was very comfortable with that,” said Carmen, who also needs to balance her job with caring for her father, a Vietnam War veteran. “It’s been really a blessing for a very stressful job.”

Up to this point, there have been few clues, if any, of where she might work next. While she suspects the VA will eventually find a federal office for her to work, she said she has seriously weighed whether it might be better to leave her job.

“Are they going to send me to work in a closed building? Are they going to send me far away? I have no idea how this is going to work out,” Carmen said. “I am not going to relocate my entire family.”

Alexander said she’s met many other members in her union, who, like Carmen, are located hours away from the three major crisis line agencies. The responses from crisis line workers while working from home seemed only positive, she said.

Many responders echoed sentiments to her that they’d found a better “life balance” in a job that means long hours and the delicate task of guiding callers away from despair.

Regardless, Alexander has been juggling too much. She’d been sent to inspect federal buildings for crisis line operations in Atlanta, many of which were not well-equipped, per her assessments. Other times, union members planning to hand in their resignations have gone to her.

“It’s really just chaotic,” Alexander said. “There’s a lot of people already calling out from work. … They can’t handle the stress.”

On Monday, all call center supervisors were ordered to return to work in-person, even though many of their employees were not in the same office space — let alone the same city. It is also unlikely the same office spaces they used prior to the pandemic can handle most crisis line operations, Alexander said.

For responders who don’t end up moving within a certain radius of their new work space in the coming months, they could have no choice but to face termination.

Dean said she can’t imagine what it’ll be like when she goes back to work.

Everyday, she still wakes up near the crack of dawn to start answering calls. Now, she can be home to say goodbye to her kids and embrace them when they come home from school. Her husband also shows her more appreciation now, she joked, because of her “home-cooked meals.”

Like many crisis line responders, Dean comes from a family of veterans, including both her husband and brother. She understands the need for a responder to be there in time for someone in crisis.

And despite the work order, she still plans to return to her work station.

“Being able to work remotely has been my saving grace with being able to do what I love,” Dean said. “Just to be available on the other end of that phone when they call and they really need help — it really means a lot to me.”

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