Job Title: Homelessness Prevention and Solutions Officer
Salary Range: £38,976 to £47,229 per annum
Three Permanent
Fulltime – 36 hours
Location: Housing Customer Services Centre, 90 Putney Bridge Road, SW18 1HR
Objective of role
We are looking for a capable and ambitious individual keen to help families and individuals facing homelessness to help support them in their homelessness journey and adhere to legislative guidance as well as policy and procedures.
We are a London borough providing a very busy statutory homelessness advice service who are looking to recruit Prevention and Solution Officers to work with us. In this role you will work with all types of people who approach us as homeless or are about to be. They may have become street homeless, or perhaps an individual has been asked to leave home. Maybe someone is being evicted from their tenancy and cannot remain there any longer or you may find that a family must leave their home due to violence. In this role you will work proactively with individuals and families to help support them in their homelessness journey and adhere to legislative guidance as well as policy and procedures set out for you to conduct your role effectively.
Within the Prevention and Solutions Service, you will provide tailored advice and information to customers and provide interim accommodation where required. You will work within a hybrid model keeping a focus on the needs of our customers and supporting your work life balance. In addition to this, you will also provide a holistic approach and make the relevant referrals for clients with complex needs that are not always immediately apparent. Your contribution and support will help those clients to stay in their current home or find a new home by delivery of key prevention techniques and options whilst managing expectations. You will enjoy partnership working, collaboration and have a keen motivation to meet objectives and importance of working towards targets.
Who are we looking for?
- To be emotionally mature and confident to work with people facing homelessness for various reasons.
- Be a good listener and able to apply what you hear to the legal framework in which we work.
- Be organised in your work and able to keep on top of changing priorities.
- Be able to engage and work collaboratively with families and individuals who require housing assistance.
- Be able to discuss, negotiate and persuade families and their landlords to prevent and relieve homelessness.
- Be able to write reasoned decision letters, carry out interviews and produce case notes and assessments of a high standard.
- Be a motivated and engaged team player.
About the role
You will be working proactively and collaboratively with households who are homeless or threatened with homelessness to assist them to sustain their current housing where possible, or otherwise to secure alternative, suitable and affordable accommodation.
You will hold a personal caseload of households, to agree practical and reasonable steps for the Council and the household to take to prevent and/or relieve homelessness. Households will include private or social tenants, homeowners, those evicted by family members or facing relationship breakdown, and may be vulnerable and/or have complex needs.
You will provide a flexible and responsive service for applicants who are homeless or threatened with homelessness by delivering services from our offices and ensuring comprehensive housing advice is available for customers, staff and partner agencies.
You will carry out home visits to assess homelessness and the sustainability of the applicant’s current housing.
In this role, you will need to do the following:
- Prevent and alleviate homelessness by providing housing advice and options to those who present as homeless.
- Conduct and review homelessness needs assessments and complete personalised housing plans to help empower individuals to sustain and secure accommodation.
- Work collaboratively with various stakeholders and manage expectations.
- Demonstrate an excellent customer centred approach and participate in Duty rotas.
- Be able to issue out statutory homelessness decision letters aligned with Homelessness legislation in a timely manner.
- Ability to take on a caseload and manage this effectively.
- Utilise IT systems to accurately update and record information.
Essential Qualifications, Skills and Experience
- Experience of working within a customer service, housing, or lettings service.
- Experience carrying out interviews, investigations, negotiations.
- Experience of effective record keeping, including electronically held information.
- Experience working with people who are homeless or in other stressful situations.
- Experience working successfully to performance targets and deadlines.
- Excellent interpersonal skills including active listening and negotiating.
- Excellent communication skills including the ability to write detailed case notes and technical letters.
We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer. If you require any reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment and selection process, please let us know.
We are also committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people/vulnerable adults and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Some posts may be exempted under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and as such appointment to these posts will be conditional upon the receipt of a satisfactory response to a check of police records via Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).
We offer a wide range of benefits designed to attract, develop, and reward our employees such as 40 days annual leave (including Bank Holidays), flexible working and a generous pension plan.
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