- Pay Rate:
£18.06 per hour PAYE
- Hours per Week:
35, Monday – Friday, normal working hours
This opening assignment is for 3 months
- Islington, London,
N1 1XR
Temporary Housing Solutions Officer
Reference no: Islington RQ792449
Pay Rate: £18.06 per hour PAYE
DBS required for this role (disclosure level not specified)
A Housing Solutions Officer is needed to ensure an effective Housing Solutions Service is provided to the client’s customers in housing need, including assessment and advice on Housing and related support.
Key responsibilities:
- Deal with and difficult housing enquiries to ensure all customers have a positive experience and receive the right answer first time with consistent high quality.
- Provide clients with a written record of the advice and guidance provided, along with actions agreed, so serving to pilot the personalise housing plans.
- Provide appropriate basic advice and assistance on all matters of housing entitlement, eligibility and priority need for social housing.
- Ensure customers receive correspondence written in plain English which takes account of any special requirements.
- Ensure wherever possible by intervention, referral, advice, advocacy, and joint working that homelessness is prevented by ensuring the broadest range of housing options is available to customers.
- Follow the departments procedures and protocols for the effective liaison and discharging statutory joint obligations.
- Enable mediation between landlords and tenants, parents’ relatives, and family relationship breakdowns in order to prevent homelessness.
- Interview and carry out an initial assessment of all customers visiting the housing aid centre.
- Give guidance regarding welfare benefits and income maximisation.
- Keep clear up to date accurate and written and computerised records.
- Interview and visit applicants carry out inquiries within target timescales at alternative locations where necessary.
- Provide information on, promote, and refer customers to all available housing options, including special schemes, voluntary sector housing, private sector housing, shared ownership and other initiatives.
- Liaise closely and effectively with both internal and external colleagues.
- Refer clients where appropriate to other professionals and agencies. For advice on housing matters, welfare rights, social services, immigration, and other issues using referral procedures.
- Advice and assess customers suitability for home shelter scheme and make appropriate referrals to relevant agencies.
“Role Requirements” – to give yourself the maximum chance of success please try and ensure your CV addresses the following essential criteria:
Experience:
- Extensive experience with housing options and advice – specifically with homelessness and welfare reforms.
- Have dealt with landlords - under the Protection of Eviction Act.
- Experience of dealing with the public providing practical advice in a housing and welfare, to include administrative experience.
- Experience of working in a multi-cultural, inner-city environment.
- Experience of preventing Homelessness by mediating with hosts (family & friends) and liaising with landlords to stop evictions.
- Experience of the relevant housing legislation and case law, including the Housing Act 1996, Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, and the Protection from Eviction Act 1977.
Knowledge:
- Knowledge of relevant homeless legislation relating to homelessness and housing needs, with reference to the Housing Act 1996 (amended 2002).
- Good Knowledge of the Homelessness Reduction Act (HRA).
- Displays an awareness, understanding and commitment to the protection and safeguarding of children and young people and or vulnerable adults.
Skills/Technical skills:
- Good with issuing/completing PHP, End of Duty letters and issuing non-cooperation letters.
- Computer literate (Very good with excel and familiar with database).
- Ability to respond sensitively to people experiencing a wide range of Housing problems.
- Proven ability to liaise with Councillors, senior management, members of the public and other Organisation.
- Demonstrable ability to meet relevant performance and service standards.
- Ability to provide clear, accountable, and responsive service to customer/client needs.
- Proven ability to input and extract data on a computer.
- Ability to communicate verbally, on the telephone, in writing and face to face with a wide range of audiences including Members, senior officers and the public and their representatives.
NB: Please feel free to apply to us direct via [email protected] by quoting the job reference and job title exactly. SEE DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS AD.
If you have previously applied to one of our vacancies and have already sent the required supporting documentation to us, please make this clear when you re-apply as this will help speed up your application.
To help speed up the process of uploading your CV to the client we would suggest that you send us your CV in Word format (or equivalent) if possible, rather than 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 this role at the PAYE rate that has been advertised. For absolute clarity, we only work on a PAYE basis, rather than entertaining 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.
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.
Other “Essential Requirements” – Please check to ensure that your CV addresses the following items:
- Our clients are generally seeking applicants who are reasonably local, so on that basis we would ideally like you to supply us with your address (or at least your post code) and a telephone number so that we can reach you during working hours.
- Your recent UK working experience going back at least 5 years, or full employment history if you have been working for fewer years than this.
- Your availability to work either immediately, or at short notice.
- 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.
- Please refer to the Role Requirements section above - your CV must address the requirements listed.
Other preferable/desirable details to include on your CV, if applicable:
- Any local authority/public sector experience
- Any relevant qualifications held or being studied for.
AE
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Your CV needs to be current with your most recent role. We won’t be able to submit it with any unexplained gaps in employment. It will save time and improve your chances of success if we can put your CV forward immediately without having to ask for revisions.
Your CV must cover the “Essential Requirements” of the role. Ideally you will address the “Essential Requirements” on each job description page directly, in a bullet point list. Please include any DBS details and other qualifications called for.
Your CV should clearly state that you are available to start work either immediately, or at short notice. In general, our clients are unable to work with notice periods of more than 1 week from the point at which a role is offered, 2 weeks at the very most.
We do not put forward covering letters, so please ensure that your CV in contains all relevant information being called for.
We recommend that you consider sending us a CV suitably tailored CV for each role that you apply for. Job board aggregator sites will generally store only one version of your CV, which can be a bit limiting, so this is to your advantage.