Job Details
Job Purpose:
To provide tailored advice to customers approaching the Housing Options and Advice Service on a range of options and opportunities including housing, training & employment, wellbeing, welfare benefits and debt. To provide specialist advice and casework service to a range of residents including, homeless households, households who are threatened with homeless, households in insecure accommodation young people and families within families. To work jointly with the Housing Assessment and Allocation Services to maximise homelessness prevention and the take up of a range of effective solutions to meet housing need. To work with the Private Sector Initiatives Team to plan the delivery of a broad range of housing options which meet the needs of homeless households and others in housing need.
Main Duties and Responsibilities:
1. To provide tailored advice on housing options, training & employment, wellbeing & welfare benefits/money management to customers threatened with homelessness or who are living in private rent accommodation or other settled non social housing.
2. To respond effectively to, prevent homelessness through advice, negotiation, mediation or conciliation, or by securing immediate access to alternative accommodation and generally promoting a housing options approach to service delivery to a full range of customers.
3. To be responsible for managing a caseload, maintaining accurate, detailed casework records, identifying priorities and meeting individual and service performance targets.
4. To maintain and develop extensive and specialist knowledge of housing options, homelessness law and practice and related fields including housing benefit and welfare rights.
5. To deliver advice from drop in service and to attend advice and options surgeries and outreach sessions as required, and to visit people at home who are threatened with homelessness as necessary.
6. To liaise proactively with the Private Sector Initiatives Team to match customers to available housing opportunities, and to plan the development and delivery of a range of housing options that meet customer need and where required to actively procure properties for tenants and clients in housing need to prevent homelessness.
7. To keep abreast of all housing legislation and local and national policy and practice relating to private sector occupation, homelessness prevention and housing options, reporting on trends and new initiatives and making recommendations for change to policy and/or practice.
8. To ensure the effective referral of all customers to partner service providers including to the Homelessness Assessment and Support Teams where homelessness cannot be prevented and the household wishes to pursue an application under Part VII, Homelessness Act 1996 (as amended) and to make recommendations regarding the award of additional preference points under the allocations scheme.
9. To assist households with a Part VI self assessment application and to help those customers or who need support to bid for permanent Council or Housing Association properties, referring them where appropriate to the Transitional Registration Team or the Permanent Allocations Team.
10. To prepare information materials and consultation or response documents to support case work and policy work, including the preparation for presentation of court documents, tribunal submissions and other detailed legal case work and to represent customers as appropriate.
11. To ensure that the information supplied by customers is immediately entered onto service databases in order to ensure that customer records are accurate, up to date, and available to staff within the Housing Needs Group and other partner services for the purposes of performance monitoring and joint service delivery.
12. To draft responses to enquiries from customers, MPs and elected members as required. To contribute to the production of information leaflets/rights guides and publicity related to private sector housing, homelessness and housing options for use by customers and partner services.
13. To ensure that personal & service outcomes and targets are met on time.
Umbrella Rate – £25.58
