Homeless Resettlement Officer

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This range is provided by Maidstone Borough Council. Your actual pay will be based on your skills and experience — talk with your recruiter to learn more.

POST TITLE
:
Homeless Resettlement Officer

SECTION
:
Housing & Community Services

Location
:
Maidstone

Contract
:
Full-Time, Permanent

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Homeless Resettlement Officer to join our busy Housing Portfolio Team on a full-time, permanent basis. We are seeking someone with an understanding of Part 7 of the Housing Act, 1996 (as amended) who has experience of working with vulnerable people and making decisions based on their best interests. You should have a robust knowledge of the causes of homelessness and the issues faced by households who are homeless, including the interventions available to relieve their homelessness and remove the barriers to move on from temporary accommodation to settled accommodation.

You would be working as part of the Housing Portfolio Team and wider housing service at our Community Hub, Trinity, in Maidstone Town Centre. The team provides a compassionate and supportive response to service users who are at risk of homelessness or rough sleeping by providing a face-to-face housing advice service to those who need it.

As a Homeless Resettlement Officer, you will manage your own case load of main housing duty cases, work with clients to identify the barriers to move on, including former rent arrears, benefit cap, benefit maximisation, and determining suitability for move on. You will need the ability to demonstrate skills of empathy in assessing the clients’ housing circumstances and support needs, to update personalised housing plans and to provide a broad range of housing options, with the aim of assisting clients to remove barriers preventing move on from temporary accommodation and identifying the most suitable move on accommodation.

As part of this, you will work closely with the Accommodation Resource Officers, nominating households for private rented accommodation and direct let nominations for social housing.

This role will be working 37 hours per week from Trinity House. There is also the scope for hybrid working under the Council’s hybrid working arrangements, dependant on the needs of the service. The current expectation is that employees work from Trinity 2 days a week, with flexibility of working from home the remaining 3 days.

You will also be required to participate in the out of hours on-call rota covering evenings, weekends and bank holidays to provide emergency assistance on housing matters.

The successful applicant will be enthusiastic, highly motivated and have excellent communication skills. Additionally, you will have excellent interpersonal, organisation and IT skills.

You should also have experience working with vulnerable or chaotic individuals or lived experience of homelessness yourself. You should be a strong team player who embraces change and is able to work flexibility to meet the needs of the service and our clients.

You will also require a full UK driving licence and the ability to travel across the borough to conduct home visits at client's homes, prisons, hostels, hospitals or other locations as may be necessary.

The Council considers this to be a customer focused role and the ability to converse at ease with customers, adapting your communication style to suit differing audiences and provide advice in accurate spoken English, is fundamental to the role.

Following the submission of your application form, it will be reviewed by the recruiting manager. Those that are successful in securing an interview can expect a job specific interview assessment, followed by an interview.

Maidstone Borough Council is a confident organisation with ambition and aspirations to deliver high quality services to our residents and local businesses. We strive to make the borough an attractive place for all and secure a successful economy.

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