202 Housing and homelessness jobs

We are looking for a Community Action Co-ordinator to support the work we do fighting housing injustice in our community. This new role will focus on co-ordinating support for our community members experiencing homelessness and housing issues as well as supporting on the delivery of actions, campaigns and mobilisations connected to this work in collaboration with the SNCK community.

We are a grassroots community organisation running a busy open-access community space 5 days per week, where we use food and people power to build new ways to live alongside each other based on care, solidarity and collaboration. We are a volunteer-led organisation with a small staff team. A core part of our work is building power within our community. We do this through embodying alternatives to the conditions that create oppression and injustice for our community members, utilising our platforms, relationships and reputation to fight for and alongside community members. We are looking for a Community Action Co-ordinator to support the work we do fighting housing injustice in our community. You will report into our Project Lead, as well as work closely with our Operations Lead on co-ordinating support for community members experiencing homelessness and housing issues

As we are a very small staff team, a proportion of your time will be allocated to core staff duties required in order to keep our busy community space running smoothly and safely. These include overseeing our space, and leading de-escalation and restorative justice interventions as and when needed. This is a new role, and as such there may be other requirements not listed above. This role is funded through Trust for London and Oak Foundation Key Tasks: Co-ordinating open access information and support service:

• Overseeing housing and homelessness casework element of daily one-to-one support, advice, referrals, signposting and crisis support (delivered by Front of House* volunteers)
• Co-ordinating weekly housing and homelessness drop-in (delivered in partnership with Croydon’s Resident Outreach team, Debt2Day3Tomorrow and councillor and MP caseworkers) Building power with our Community:
• Share up-to-date information on rights, entitlements, advocacy and access to new services with our community in accessible and relevant ways e.g. workshops, community forums*, newsletters and learning resources
• Develop new mechanisms for those with lived experience to lead our housing and homelessness work

Casework service development:

• Work alongside SNCK staff, partners and volunteers to continue to develop, test and fine tune our wide ranging volunteer-led holistic casework service, and provide casework support to volunteers when needed.
• Develop a triage system appropriate to the needs of our community and in keeping with our values.
• Identify patterns and trends in the help being sought by our community to inform community action and mobilising work Networking and Partnerships:
• Support Project Lead to deliver the Croydon Housing Action Forum, including bi-monthly forum meetings, combatting inadequate housing and housing/homelessness services, and challenge local and national policy and strategy
• Manage current partnerships with advice, casework and advocacy services (Public Interest Law Centre, South West London Law Centres, Croydon Refugee Day Centre, Croydon Winter Shelter, People’s Recovery Project, Debt2Day3Tomorrow, local councillors and MP caseworkers)
• Build new partnerships in order to increase access to advice, rights and entitlements for our community (e.g. with housing providers, council officers, local elected officials) 

Community Actions and Campaigns;

• Co-ordinate actions, campaigns and mobilisations in collaboration with the SNCK community connected to our current areas of work (temporary accommodation, access to homelessness services, supported accomodation

Communications:

• Lead on internal communications related to housing and homelessness including contributions to meetings, Whatsapp groups and newsletters.
• Work with the communications working group*** to deliver external communications related to areas of responsibility including social media, newsletters, website and print media.
• Be a key point of contact for the organisation for external enquiries regarding housing and homelessness
• Input into internal research, monitoring and evaluations and funding reports in a timely manner.

Training and Development:

• Keep up to date with changes in housing and homelessness case law, legislation and policy relevant to our community
• Create SNCK training resources and identify relevant development opportunities for Front of House* volunteers
• Keep up to date with changing policy, legislation and servicesservices both locally and across London.

* Front of House is a term we use to describe the team that manages our community space any time we are open. This includes meeting and greeting guests, taking in donations, answering queries, and carrying out triage or basic casework.

** Community Forums are bi-monthly meetings for anyone in the SNCK community where we build power through exploring any challenges we are experiencing, sharing suggestions and feedback on our work and increasing our knowledge around systemic oppression.

***The communications working group is a group of volunteers who manage all of SNCK’s external communications