Houston 311 director details call volumes, app relaunch and plans to move contact center into enterprise fund

Deputy Director Charles W. Jackson, director of Houston 311, told the Houston City Council Service Delivery Committee that Houston 311 handled about 1,100,000 calls and created roughly 488,000 service requests in fiscal 2024, and outlined technology, staffing and funding changes intended to improve customer transparency and emergency response.

Jackson told the committee that "Houston 311 does not close service requests," saying departments — not the 311 contact center — make closure decisions and that the 311 team is a "solution center for the city of Houston." He described a recently relaunched mobile app, a parent-child case project that will keep a single case number when a request is reclassified, and a plan to merge 311 with utility billing contact operations as a step toward placing 311 into an enterprise fund.

The updates aim to reduce public confusion about case status and give customers more visibility. Jackson said the relaunched SeeClickFix-based mobile app (released February 2023) has about 38,000 downloads and has produced 57,690 service requests since the relaunch; the app now shows the city service request number, department assignment and closure reason. Jackson also described an integration that will include the department name in the case-creation email sent to customers.

Committee members pressed Jackson on performance metrics and operational details. Jackson…