Homelessness Prevention & Relief Officer – Housing

Homelessness Prevention & Relief Officer – Housing

What's involved with this role:
Temporary Homelessness Prevention & Relief Officer – Housing

Job Ref: Brent 5256975

Pay Rate: £19.95 per hour PAYE

Hours per week: 36 Monday – Friday, normal working hours

Role Length: This opening assignment is for 2 months

City: Wembley, London

The purpose of the role is to deliver intense specialised support to single individuals and couples without dependent children who are in housing need.

The posts’ primary function is to prevent homelessness by helping customers to retain their current accommodation and where this cannot be achieved, present a range of housing options to resolve their homelessness.

Key Responsibilities:







Interview all applicants that approach the Council for housing assistance, to determine what actions can be taken to resolve their housing need.
Complete Housing Options Initial Assessment for families, arrange appointments, manage housing options inbox and conduct home visits
Manage caseloads, carry out necessary investigation work, issue duty letters, Personal Housing Plans and formal decisions letters in compliance with current homelessness legislation.
Understand complex or multiple needs as well as strengths of applicants and build a culture of trust and motivation to help clients progress through their Personal Housing Plans.
Organise and manage a caseload identifying priorities and deadlines ensuring that systematic progress is made on each case in line with performance targets.
Work creatively and use knowledge, skills and information to help prevent homelessness through negotiation, advice or assistance,





either preventing the loss of accommodation or securing alternative accommodation suited to the needs of the applicant.
To conduct home visits in and out of the borough if required.
Maintain detailed working knowledge of homeless legislation, other relevant areas of law, Government guidance and keeping abreast of relevant case law.
Maintain up to date knowledge of housing options available to applicants.
Have a good understating of issues affecting affordability of housing including knowledge of welfare benefits.
To conduct outreach work to promote the work carried out by the Single Homelessness Team as required.
Liaise with colleagues, both internally and externally, and create, maintain and improve key partnership working in line with duties to prevent and relieve homelessness.






To deal effectively with correspondence from customers and their advocates, MP’s, housing providers, statutory and voluntary agencies etc. This may involve preparing information to support court cases or panel hearings.

Qualifications:

Degree qualified or equivalent.

Experience:

Minimum of 12 months recent experience in a similar role, or context and ideally within a public sector organisation.
Experience of giving advice and information to vulnerable customers and working in a busy front line customer focused environment.
Strong and effective experience in provision of exceptional customer services.
Worked with households experiencing a housing crisis and the provision of advice and assistance covering a range of aspects of that crisis.






Application of the Suitability Assessment in recommending potential pathways for applicants.
Experience of negotiation/advocacy/mediation.

Knowledge:

Comprehensive knowledge of all core legislation such as the Housing Act 1985, Housing Act 1996 as amended by Homelessness Act 2002, the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, housing needs issues, related legislation and case law.
A good working knowledge of housing benefit rules and of the supply and demand issues related to public sector and private housing in an inner London Council.
Comprehensive knowledge of prevention tools and options.

Skills & Abilities:

Ability to organise own workload and prioritise competing demands.
to deal with difficult customers and maintain positive working relations.






Ability to achieve targets and methodically respond to changing demands and priorities.
Excellent inter-personal skills, with an ability to develop a rapport with and guide residents towards sustainable outcomes.
Ability to negotiate with households in housing need and influence outcomes.
Commitment to motivating and empowering people to succeed and providing excellent customer service.
Ability to communicate well, in writing and in person.
Ability to maintain high levels of motivation and demonstrate flexibility when things don’t go according to plan.
Demonstrate commitment to and comfort with the Council’s equalities and diversity policy through all aspects of service delivery.
Strong IT skills including Microsoft packages or equivalent (e.g. G Suite).







Please quote the Job Title & Vacancy Reference No. in your application, or we will be unable to match your CV to the role being applied for.

Unless the DBS requirement stated above is for a Basic Disclosure, your DBS must be either through us or be accompanied by a subscription to the DBS updating service.

Clients are generally looking for candidates who are local to, or who can commute easily to the place of work. It will help your application if your CV states, in broad terms, where you reside – there is no need for a full address.

Please feel free to apply to us direct via [email protected] by quoting the job reference and exact job title.







To help speed up the process of uploading your CV to the client we would ask that you send us your CV in Word format (or equivalent) if possible, not as a PDF.

If you are successful in securing this role, please note that for the entire duration of this contract, regardless of extension, you will be working at the PAYE rate that has been advertised. For absolute clarity, we only work on a PAYE basis, rather than umbrella pay terms. We do not offer Ltd/umbrella or outside IR35 rates. If you wish to understand PAYE vs Umbrella more, please let us know and we can send you some additional information for clarity.

Due to the number of CVs being sent to us under current market conditions, unfortunately we cannot respond to all applications. If you have not heard from us within 3 working days, please assume that you have not been shortlisted on this occasion.





We will, however, be very happy to receive future applications from you for other roles.

S Please note that clients invariably ask us to strip out contact details from CVs before we submit them for consideration. This is always quicker and easier to do if you send your CV to us in Word format, rather than as a PDF please

▶️ Homelessness Prevention & Relief Officer – Housing
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