Housing Specialist

About the role

The SOAR Housing Specialist provides housing-related support and advocacy to individuals and families impacted by homelessness. The Specialist coordinates housing stability activities, provides referrals to needed community resources, develops housing plans, and delivers tenancy-based education that promotes housing retention. The Specialist also assists with grant monitoring and completes reports for the SOAR Housing First program.

Responsibilities

• Complete intake assessments for new clients referred to the SOAR Housing First program.
• Ensure that all referral documentation is collected, reviewed, and validated to substantiate program enrollment.
• Support clients in finding and securing safe, affordable housing and help families access resources for housing-related assistance (i.e. furniture procurement, utility assistance, etc.).
• Maintain a caseload to provide support identifying community resources.
• Partner with clients to create housing plans and assist with community referrals and linkage as indicated.
• Serve as liaison with housing inspector, helping to coordinate new, annual and other housing inspections to ensure compliance with program standards.
• Advocate with landlord and property managers regarding tenancy and negotiate move-in costs.
• With direction from the Housing Program Manager, complete regularly scheduled grant reporting.
• Ensure that services are accurately recorded and captured in data reports and the electronic health record.
• Complete monthly budgets for clients enrolled in the agency’s representative payee program.
• Conduct social groups that promote community building, housing attainment, and housing retention.
• Perform regularly scheduled chart audits to ensure that documentation meets standards set by grant funders.
• Obtain verification documents annually to support the housing recertification process.

Requirements

• Formal Education and Training: Bachelor’s degree required.
• Personal vehicle with current automobile insurance and valid Maryland driver’s license required.
• Experience: Two years of experience in connecting individuals to essential services including healthcare, mental health, and addiction services. One year of experience completing intake assessments and developing treatment plans. Experience working in a health care setting preferred.

Skills

• Knowledge of Baltimore City community resources for addiction, social services and mental health.
• Willingness to adopt Harm Reduction and Housing First principles and apply them to work with clients.
• Approaches change with a positive, open-minded attitude.
• Demonstrates personal integrity and has well-developed interpersonal skills necessary to engage clients and promote positive relationships with other community agencies and providers.
• Displays strong attention to detail and notices discrepancies easily.
• Able to be flexible and work as part of an interdisciplinary team.
• Able to take initiative and problem solve.
• Able to work with ill, disabled, emotionally upset, and sometimes hostile clients.

Benefits

Continuing in that spirit, we are now implementing a care model that takes quality and access to a new level. A health home delivers person-centered, whole-person care that is evidence-based, uses data and listens to clients to continuously improve the care we deliver. We have been person-centered and focused on the whole person since the first client walked through our clinic doors in 1985. We’ve also always applied evidenced-based standards to our work and used data to inform our care. What’s changed is how much we’ve grown over the years: We have more disciplines, staff members and sites. Coordinating all of our activity today requires a more powerful and standardized way of delivering care. We are a health home.

Pay

$42,500.00 To $50,000.00 Annually.

Schedule

8:30am - 5:00pm.

Department

Housing Services.

Reports To

Housing Program Manager.

FLSA Status

Non-Exempt.

Supervisor

No.

Job Status

Essential Onsite at 421 Fallsway Main Clinic.

Agency Responsibilities

• Models and reinforces the core values of dignity, authenticity, hope, justice, passion, and balance.
• Participates in performance improvement and advocacy activities that support the mission.
• Protects clients’ personal health information by maintaining compliance with HIPAA and other relevant health care-related IT security regulations.
• Performs other duties on an as-needed basis.

Why Join Us?

Be part of a mission-driven team committed to racial equity, social justice, and community wellness. Work in a dynamic, people-first organization that centers compassion, authenticity, and hope. Receive training and support to grow in your advocacy and peer work. Help shape the future of housing and recovery services in Baltimore.

About Health Care For The Homeless

Locations: Baltimore City – Downtown - 421 Fallsway, Baltimore, MD 21202 Baltimore City – West Baltimore - 2000 W. Baltimore St., Suite 3300 Baltimore, MD 21223 Baltimore County - 9150 Franklin Square Dr., Suite 301 Baltimore, MD 21237

Vision

Everyone is healthy and has a safe home in a just and respectful community.

Mission

We work to end homelessness through racially equitable health care, housing and advocacy in partnership with those of us who have experienced it.

Core Values

Dignity, authenticity, hope, justice, passion, and balance.

Five Areas of Focus

• ACCESS FOR THOSE WHO NEED US
• TOTAL TEAM-BASED CARE
• CARE MANAGEMENT
• BETTER MANAGE AND COORDINATE CARE
• IMPROVE THE HEALTH OF THE LARGER POPULATION

Person-Centered, Whole-Person Care

We provide person-centered, whole-person care, combining health care services and supportive services with advocacy. We provide whole-person care in a safe, respectful environment with acute sensitivity to clients’ life experiences. All have endured trauma; many engage in behaviors that pose a risk to their health. Through a trauma-informed and harm reduction approach, we meet individuals where they are, engage them in care with dignity and work to engage them fully in their own overall wellness.

TRAUMA-INFORMED CARE

Trauma is central to the homeless experience. People without homes often experience life trauma before they end up on the street, and living on the street is, in itself, traumatic. Trauma affects everything from our ability to trust others and build relationships to our brain development. For these reasons, we at Health Care for the Homeless are committed to providing trauma-informed care, a best practice that recognizes the impact of violence on an individual’s well-being, and that helps heal the social and psychological wounds violence leaves in its wake.

HARM REDUCTION

Total adherence or abstinence doesn’t work for all who engage in behaviors harmful to their health, like substance use. Harm reduction leverages the relationship between the care provider and the individual to lower the individual’s health risks. Our providers work with individuals to set goals that both reduce harm and are realistic to achieve. Our model of care is known in the health care industry as a patient-centered medical home.

Health Care for the Homeless is Participating in the Maryland Primary Care Program (MDPCP)

To help us provide you with the best care, Medicare will share some of your personal health information with HCH and the State Designated Health Information Exchange (CRISP), to share with other health professionals providing care to you. This will provide us with a more complete picture of your health and allow us to better coordinate your care.

Health Care for the Homeless is accredited for quality

We invite you to apply and join a welcoming team.