Housing & Support Officer (Vulnerable People)

An exciting and rewarding opportunity to work as a Housing & Support Officer in Reigate, Surrey.

Our client is a charity and housing provider. They provide housing and support to more than 1,000 homeless and vulnerable people each year, helping them to develop the skills and confidence to live independently.

Position: Housing & Support Officer
Location: Reigate, Surrey (RH2)
Job type: Full Time, Permanent
Hours: 39 hours per week
Salary: £21,250 to £24,000 per annum + on-call allowance + benefits

Closing Date: 3 February 2019
Interview Date: Week commencing 11 February 2019

About the role:

As a Housing & Support Officer, you will work as part of a team to provide high-quality housing and support services to the following client groups: homeless people, people with a history of offending, people recovering from alcohol and drug dependency, young people or people with mental health problems.

You will support and empower clients by providing holistic one to one support to encourage their personal development, whilst effectively managing risk, and assist them to achieve their individual goals and live as independently as possible.

You will carry out housing management activities such as rent collection, tenancy enforcement, reporting maintenance issues and health and safety checks, ensuring a firm but empathetic approach to support clients to maintain their tenancies.

About you:

- Previous experience of working with some or all of the client groups supported by the team.
- Knowledge and understanding of the benefits system.
- High levels of literacy and numeracy skills; with ability to communicate effectively in person, by phone or in writing with a range of people.
- Ability to learn new skills and the desire, patience, persistence and empathy to work with unpredictable and challenging client groups.
- Self-confidence and emotional resilience to cope with lone working and potentially stressful situations; ability to remain calm in crisis situations.
- Good organisational skills and the ability to manage own work-load and time effectively; ability to produce high quality written work under pressure.
- Ability to keep the financial records required for monitoring the collection of weekly charges, arrears, petty cash etc.
- Personal flexibility and ability to work outside of normal working hours as necessary, to take part in the on-call service and the weekend / bank holiday rota as required. Full, valid driving licence that will permit the use of manual pool vehicles as required, as well as use of own car for work purposes.

Desirable skills / experience:

- Experience of working in supported housing would be an advantage.
- Education to degree standard or equivalent and / or other relevant professional training or qualifications.

Open to trainees:

No experience of working in Supported Housing? Don’t be put off – if you have the desire and aptitude for helping people change their lives, Transform will be able to consider taking you on initially as a Trainee. (Starting salary £20,000 pa + on-call allowance + benefits.)

You may have experience of the following: Support Worker, Housing, Vulnerable People, Charities, Social Worker, Community Development, Volunteer, Housing Support Worker, Challenging Behaviour, Third Sector, Residential Care Worker, Charity, Voluntary Sector etc.