Housing Rights Manager

28 hours a week, 0.8 FTE

About the role

Our Housing Rights Manager will be a key member of our Family Support Service. They will manage a weekly drop-in clinic from within the hostels where they will assess new housing cases and develop a support plan with families. They will manage a full housing caseload of housing support work, collaborating with relevant local groups, local authority partners and law centres to progress families’ housing cases. They will learn from the barriers families tell us they face, develop CARIS Families’ housing advocacy service in response and use these learnings to contribute to campaigns for reform to temporary accommodation practices and policies locally and nationally.

In their first year, the Housing Rights Manager will work in partnership with housing solicitors at Shelter to write a Housing Information and Rights handbook tailored to the processes of our target boroughs. The handbook will aim to demystify the temporary accommodation system in our two boroughs, explain residents’ legal rights and help them understand their options. It will form a key part of the support we can offer and allow us to reach many more families in hostels than our small staff team can individually case-work with.

The Benefits

Salary of £37,941 FTE (pro-rata to £30,353 0.8 FTE)
Some flexible working can be negotiated around core frontline delivery hours
25 days’ annual leave, plus Christmas week closure and bank holidays (pro rata)
5% employer pension contribution
Ongoing learning and development opportunities
Being part of a committed, supportive and inclusive team

We particularly welcome and encourage applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic individuals, and those who have lived experience of the impact of homelessness and/or temporary accommodation policy and practice.

About CARIS Families

CARIS Families is a small, frontline charity that supports families who are homeless and living in overcrowded multi-occupant hostels in the London Boroughs of Hackney and Camden. Life in temporary accommodation hostels entrenches children and their parents in poverty and disadvantage. Families suffer from acute overcrowding, inadequate basic facilities and a permanent sense of unsafety that comes from living in close proximity to vulnerable and chaotic neighbours. The nature of hostel life isolates people from their support networks, decimates their physical and mental health and becomes an additional adverse life experience in itself for families already suffering the trauma of having become homeless.

CARIS Families exists to provide vital early intervention to mitigate the worst effects of hostel life and homelessness for children and parents in our four target hostels. We do this by providing hands-on play, learning and social activities to help children meet their potential, improve families’ wellbeing and build their support network. We provide a holistic family support service that case-works with each family individually to reduce financial and social pressures on them as they wait for a permanent home. We also use our data and learned experiences about temporary accommodation to join campaigns for reform to temporary accommodation policy and practice, both locally and nationally.

We have recently received funding to employ a dedicated Housing Rights Manager on a 4-day-a-week contract for the next two years. This is an exciting addition to our team, as it will be our first staff member dedicated to helping our homeless families with their housing case. The housing system is notoriously opaque: families tell us it can be a hopeless minefield to navigate independently and that they often can’t access meaningful help with it, resulting in years-long hostel stays. Our Housing Rights Manager will step into the gap as a much-needed advocate for these families, working with families on an individualised basis to gain the information and support they need to progress their housing case and expedite their move-on into a suitable home.

How to Apply

Please email office@carisfamilies.org to request an application form and full Job Description and Person Specification. On receipt, please complete and return the form by email to the same address, referencing the Job Description and Person Specification in completing the Personal Statement section, by 6pm on Friday 8th November 2024. However we will be assessing and inviting suitable candidates to interview on a rolling basis throughout the application period, so we would encourage interested candidates to submit their applications as soon as possible.

We can only accept applications via our Application Form; please do not send CVs in its place as these will not be considered. Please note that this post is subject to an enhanced vetting and barring check.

Application deadline: 6pm on Friday 8th of November 2024

CARIS Families (registered charity name CARIS Camden) - Jobs & Mission (UK)

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Housing Rights Manager