Housing Support Worker

Come Build Hope and Homes with Us!

Housing Support Worker- Full Time

St. Thomas, ON (Railway City Lofts – 614 Talbot Street)

Salary: $45,900-$54,600

Position Description:  Reporting to the Housing Support Team Lead, as the Housing Support Worker, you will work alongside residents who have experience with mental health and/or substance use to maintain housing stability. You will support individuals in developing and working through their personal service plans striving towards health, wellness and belonging. Promoting and demonstrating the vision, mission and values of Indwell within the workplace and community. Also, working within the context of a collaborative interdisciplinary team reflecting the principles of person-centered and evidence-based care by assisting with coordinating and delivering mental health and addiction services to residents. This is program serves individuals who have experienced long term housing instability and/or long stay hospitalizations. This position will require a high level of resilience and willingness to work in close proximity to challenging situations. 

What matters to you? Being in a work culture that operates out of their core values of DIGNITY, LOVE and HOPE- embracing diversity, promoting equality and inclusion. A place that sees you as a LEADER contributing your individuality to champion the vision of creating communities that TRANSFORM lives.    

About Indwell:   Founded in 1974, our Christian charity continues to thrive and grow exponentially as we serve people impacted by poverty and homelessness through our vision of HOPE and HOMES for All.   We are the fastest growing developer in Ontario creating affordable high quality efficient housing communities coupled with supportive programs to over 1200 tenants to meet their needs of health, wellness, and belonging.   To learn more, go to: indwell.ca/our-model

What our Tenants say:  

"The welcoming you get when you walk through the doors, from tenants to staff. They're always checking on you."  "Living at Indwell has been teaching me to do things and taught me how to get along with better people, be better people and trust people and let people do and say what they want."  "An affordable rent.  It’s huge, it’s huge. It means I can eat properly. And that affects my physical and mental health, so that is huge."   

Hours of Work: 40 hours per week, scheduled between the hours of 8am-11pm. Flexibility is required to meet program needs including weekends and some public holidays.  As the program operates 7 days a week, being on-call for 1 week every 6 weeks is required to support the tenants and each other on the team. The on-call rotation consists of carrying a work cell phone 24/7 for that one week, responding to urgent matters.

WHAT YOU WILL DOING:  

Direct Support to Residents:

• Skilled in building therapeutic relationships with residents with a recovery-oriented, trauma-informed approach, promoting hope and trust.
• Comfort and familiarity with a harm reduction approach. 
• Develop, contribute to, and carry out individual resident service plans, including any relevant assessment tools.
• Work individually with residents to identify and achieve goals as it relates to their individual support needs and recovery.
• Connect residents with supportive community resources, including both clinical and informal supports, facilitating case coordination and case management.
• Strong familiarity with local resources.
• Confident in utilizing crisis management and intervention skills.
• Respond to resident complaints/concerns with care, compassion, and efficiency.  
• Reinforcing residents’ life skills, including spiritual, social, and coping skills.
• Assist with intake and orientation of new residents.
• Develop and facilitate relevant group programming.
• Complete required documentation in a thorough and timely manner with a focus on maintaining and protecting tenant health records. 

Leadership   

• Consistently show initiative and engage in creative problem solving.
• Experience leading and/or guiding internal teams to accomplish shared goals.
• Ability to take the lead on internal program development and projects.
• Established relationships with community partners within the local social service sector
• Reinforce a positive workplace culture and tone through your skilled verbal and written communication.
• Keep interdisciplinary team informed of community opportunities and emerging trends related to best practices in housing stability.
• Play a coordinating role on the team around duties such as apartment checks and pest management.
• Comfort and familiarity with landlord responsibilities such as pest management, rent collection, and housing stability processes.

Support, Direction, and Commitment to Interdisciplinary Team

• Work as part of an interdisciplinary team to provide direct and indirect support to residents, encouraging housing stability. These supports may include: medication administration, apartment checks and unit maintenance teaching, oversight of pest management protocols, community events, meal delivery, and other supports as necessary.
• Support unit vacancies and turnover.
• Support and collaborate with Volunteer Coordinator to integrate program volunteers into housing support activities. Complete volunteer logs as required.
• Assist in the orientation and support of staff, students and volunteers.
• Keep apprised of new research and developments relevant to your role, through workshops, journals, websites, and literature. Transfer knowledge back to the team and residents in the most effective manner available.
• Follow applicable regulations, policies and procedures.
• Work collaboratively with Facilities, supporting and reporting maintenance needs to ensure upkeep of buildings and tenant units.

Health, Welfare and Safety Practices

• Use appropriate procedures and follow-up documentation when responding to emergency situations.
• Ensure your own health & safety, that of tenants and co-workers by adhering to health & safety standards.
• Complete required safety checks and inspections as assigned.
• Attend and participate in all required training to maintain and develop new skills. 

WHAT YOU WILL BRING:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent, and related experience

• Experience working within a case management framework with individuals with serious mental illness, substance use, or other special needs
• A warm, sensitive, and caring approach
• Ability to maintain good interpersonal relationships and have a genuine interest in supporting people living with mental illness
• Work independently, have strong problem-solving skills, be flexible, organized, responsible, and take initiative

• A valid “G” class driver’s license with own vehicle

We want you to thrive: 

• Vacation: 3 weeks paid with 8 HEAL days (sick and personal appointments) per year 
• Benefits ($6,000/year) paid: Extended health (100% medication coverage- some exceptions may apply), dental and vision care.  Life Insurance 
• Employee Assistance Program- primary care and professional consulting services
• Group RRSP: Indwells gives 5% of salary, you can opt in for further contributions 
• New Staff Orientation Days  
• Professional and Personal Development- annual Leadership Conference (themed with guest speaker) + Spiritual Ranch Retreat (reflection and recharge with various outdoor activities).  Cliffs Strengths Finder Assessment facilitated by People Developer for mentoring opportunities, Lunch and Learn Webinars, Indigenous Cultural Competency and 2SLGBTQ Awareness. Non-Violent Crisis Intervention (NVCI), First Aid/CPR/Naloxone, Therapeutic Relationships and Applied Suicide Intervention (ASIST) 
• Social Events:  Indwell’s Hope and Homes Banquet yearly to celebrate the important work we do + team gatherings 

As Indwell works to support diverse tenant populations, we are seeking to create a diverse work culture that closely matches the diversity of our communities with qualified individuals who share our commitment to equity and inclusion, who will contribute to the diversification of ideas and perspectives.  Our supports, services and employment are open to people from every creed, race, ethnicity, sex, ability, sexual orientation, and gender identity.  And we especially invite applications from Black, Indigenous peoples, members of racialized communities and intersectionalities.  Indwell’s leadership are motivated by the example of Jesus Christ as reflected in Indwell’s statement of faith.  

Inspired to JOIN OUR TEAM, we invite you… 

To APPLY:  Please forward your cover letter and resume to our website: www.indwell.ca/careers. We thank all for your interest; however, only those applicants that are being considered will be notified.  

Personal information submitted will be used only for employment opportunities within Indwell in accordance with the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act.   

Accommodation will be provided to applicants who make their needs known in advance for the duration of the hiring process as required under Indwell’s Employment policy.