Homelessness Prevention Specialist

Homelessness Prevention Specialist

We are Hestia, a leading organisation dedicated to empowering individuals to rebuild their lives and achieve independence. Our Modern Slavery Response Team works with potential survivors of Modern Slavery, providing high-quality emotional and practical support to access services for their recovery and reintegration.

The Homelessness Prevention Specialist will play a crucial role in our team, providing specialist support and guidance to advocates working with service users who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. The post holder will offer tailored support, liaising with local authorities and other homeless stakeholders, and act as a key point of contact for advocates.

Key Responsibilities:

• Adopt a specialist lead role in working with Service Users experiencing homelessness and destitution to offer specialist support to advocates working with service users who are at risk of homelessness or who are homeless to access emergency housing support and interventions.
• Creatively and decisively highlight areas of best practice across the service where there are solutions to prevent and solve homelessness for service users.
• Provide support to advocates when dealing with complex housing cases.
• Review housing related applications and referrals and offer tailored support and advice on a case-by-case basis.
• Hold clinics during office hours to advise around housing issues and homelessness prevention.
• Share your knowledge and understanding of housing and homelessness legislation, in relation to private rented housing, local authority housing and homelessness.
• Keep updated on any changes to the Homelessness code of guidance.
• Keep up to date with contractual safehouse guidelines and regulations.
• Oversee service users in alternative accommodation due to homelessness.
• Provide support to advocates on difficult housing cases and sharing best practice.
• Attend team meetings and take part in Service policy and strategic planning.
• Create resources and update them regularly.
• Deliver housing related workshops around housing legislation to advocates.
• Be an active part of the housing champions group.
• Lead discussions at team meetings/away days around themes and trends with SU's that are impacting homelessness incidents.

Why Join Hestia?

Hestia is a supportive, inclusive and resolution-driven work environment where your contributions are recognised and valued. As a member of our team, you will have the chance to grow both personally and professionally while making a lasting impact on the lives of those we serve.

Requirements:

• You can demonstrate knowledge and experience or relevant qualifications of working with housing and homelessness legislation, in relation to private rented housing, the Homelessness Reduction Act and homelessness eviction and tenants' right.
• You have experience with advocacy and mediation around complex housing issues faced by the client group.
• You can demonstrate knowledge and experience of working with welfare benefits legislation (including welfare reform) and (Health and Safety)
• You have knowledge and experience of working with the causes of homelessness and the ability to create interventions with service users to address these.
• You are solution-focused and proactive in achieving high-quality client work and results in a fast-paced and outcome-focused environment.
• You have previously worked in a target-led environment.
• You thrive in negotiating and accomplishing daily outcomes.
• You are an excellent communicator and people person who is genuine and empathetic.
• You have strong work ethics with excellent customer service focus.
• You have impeccable organisational skills.
• You can positively manage complex work projects and own workload in line with service standards and Hestia values, working towards client progression and meeting service targets and deadlines, reviewing work and priorities.
• You can use computer systems, including databases as part of your day-to-day work.
• You have strong communication skills and the ability to record good-quality data, case notes, plans and outcomes accurately and timely.
• You are excellent at building relationships with team members and the public.
• You are socially conscious and want to make a difference.
• You are great at building relationships with team members and the public.
• You are flexible and adaptable team player with a can-do attitude.

Our Commitment to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion:

Hestia is committed to creating and maintaining a diverse and inclusive workforce and values the skills, abilities, talent, and experiences different people and communities bring to our organisation.

We are a Disability Confident Employer:

Hestia is proud to be a disability confident employer, dedicated to the employment and career development of individuals with disabilities. We offer a guaranteed interview scheme for all applicants with disabilities who meet the minimum criteria for the role they have applied for.