Position Description

Seattle’s Human Services Department is seeking a dynamic, customer-focused and equity-centered leader for the City’s new HOPE Team (Homelessness Outreach & Provider Ecosystem).

The HOPE Team will work with City departments and partner agencies to coordinate contracted outreach work at high-priority encampments, referrals to City-set-aside shelter beds, elevate needs for debris removal at encampments, and coordinate responses to community questions on outreach and unsheltered homelessness.

The HOPE Team will ensure alignment and provision of effective services to help people living unsheltered on Seattle’s streets. This will include coordinating:

• City-funded outreach providers in high-impact areas where people living unsheltered are in need of support, connections to shelter, housing, and safety strategies, and
• Other City departments in efforts to ensure public spaces are clean, safe, and accessible for all.
• Connecting people who are living unsheltered to new City shelter resources as they are deployed throughout 2021.

Job Responsibilities

The HOPE Team Manager provides direction and oversight of the team responsible for coordinating the City’s response to unsheltered homelessness, including:

a. coordinating homelessness outreach efforts across the City,
b. coordinating the City’s mitigation of encampments on City property,
c. managing storage and delivery of individuals’ belongings,
d. coordinating the City’s emergency/weather response to unsheltered individuals, and
e. collaborating with the broader homelessness service system, including the newly forming King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

This position will report to the HSD Deputy Director, manage a team of seven professionals, and work closely with HSD senior leadership and the Mayor’s office. The HOPE Team Manager will also provide oversight and evaluation of outreach and site-based data and outcomes, provide guidance on developing policy and protocols, and develop external engagement and communication strategies.
The successful candidate will be a leader who has a demonstrated commitment to race and social justice and the ability to make decisions with an equity lens.

This position will be responsible for coordinating the City’s efforts to provide effective, culturally responsive services with the highest levels of community and customer service. To do so, the HOPE Team Manager will need to possess excellent communication skills—including listening, writing, and public speaking—and be able to exercise sound judgment and political savvy in complex situations while staying focused on achieving the desired impact. This leader will have the ability to bring a wide cross-section of community stakeholders together to work to eradicate homelessness.

Program Management: The HOPE Team Manager is responsible for all aspects of the Human Services Department’s the Homelessness Outreach & Provider Ecosystem Team including:

• Embedding a racial-equity lens into the team’s work
• Ensuring high-priority/high-need encampments receive appropriate levels of service delivery from contracted outreach providers.
• Manage a budget of approximately $1.3M, advise on budget impacts related to encampment work held by other departments, and respond to budget questions from the Central Budget Office.
• Engage City departments, community stakeholders, and contracted providers to design and implement site-
specific solutions for high-priority/high-need encampments.
• Manage data collection and reporting as required by the City Council and the Mayor’s Office.
• Create internal and external communications for the program.
• Participate in developing and implementing the City’s emergency weather response for unsheltered individuals.
• Partner with contracted outreach providers to plan and implement equitable shelter referral processes.
• Engage in cross-departmental work to ensure encampments impacting City projects or existing in hazardous locations on City property are mitigated in accordance with City policies and procedures.
• Ensure homeless individuals’ belongings are stored and delivered back to them in a timely manner in accordance with City guidelines.
• Liaise with the King County Regional Homeless Authority and other homeless system stakeholders on issues related to unsheltered homelessness.
• Utilize matrix management to achieve the HOPE Team’s objectives by participating on cross-departmental workgroups with colleagues (e.g., Parks, SPU, SDOT, SCL, SFD, SPD, King County Public Health, and others), representatives of Mayor’s Office, and when collaborating with executive directors of contracted outreach programs.

Policy and Communications:
• Serve as an expert on outreach and mitigation strategies related to unsheltered homelessness, including familiarity with Seattle’s encampment mitigation history and the intricacies of the Multi-department Administration Rules (MDARS) that govern encampment removals.
• Advise the Human Services Department and Mayor’s Office on policies related to unsheltered homelessness including:
-encampment debris mitigation strategies,
-encampment removal policies and practices,
-equitable outreach and engagement
-equitable resource allocation strategies
-fire, public health, and public safety risk-reduction strategies.

• Monitor best-practices and emerging strategies in other West-Coast and similarly sized cities across the country and analyze those strategies for potential implementation in Seattle.
• Analyze outreach and operations data to inform decision-making.
• Create written internal and external communications and reports in collaboration with the department’s External Affairs team.
• Create and deliver presentations and conduct media interviews, as needed.
• Represent the HOPE Team in community-based meetings.

People Management:
• Manage a team of seven direct reports, including six Strategic Advisors.
• Hire, onboard, train, mentor and supervise staff who work in a high stress field.
• Apply trauma informed coaching to provide support and professional development for team members.

To succeed in this role, the incumbent will employ these qualities on the job:

• Cultural competency and a strong track record of successfully working with diverse individuals and groups of people with different philosophical points of view in a collaborative, respectful, and productive manner.
• Highly adaptable, agile, strategic thinker who is able to “flex” to meet challenges while ensuring a commitment to race and social justice, customer focus, and ethics and integrity are maintained.
• Customer focused mindset shown through a deep commitment to providing high quality internal and external customer service.
• Ability to envision and strengthen the current outreach/engagement service delivery system.
• Ability to interpret quantitative and qualitative data and track key performance measures to make continuous system improvements.
• Embrace collaboration when working with internal and external partners
• Maintain a high level of critical thinking and leadership in daily management of the HOPE Team to ensure programmatic goals are established, tracked, and achieved.
• Demonstrate exceptional interpersonal skills to build and maintain relationships with staff, clients, partners, and members of the community.
• Establish and monitor organizational alignment between the HOPE Team and the Human Services Department, the City of Seattle, and the forthcoming King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA)
• Use business acumen to develop and manage the HOPE Team’s vision and purpose and oversee the day to day operations, including budgets, personnel, data collection and reporting, and communication with constituents.
• Demonstrated ability to use innovation/systems thinking to set and achieve the goals and effective operations of the HOPE Team, within the broader context of a regional homelessness system.
• Experience with people management and supporting the development of professional direct reports in a high profile, fast-paced work environment.
• Ability to manage complex, long- and short-term projects in a highly visible, political human services system.
• Political and organizational savvy.
• Ability to leverage resources to accomplish goals.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

Education:  A bachelor’s degree in Social Work, Psychology, Human Development, Social Sciences, Business Administration, Public Policy or a related field.

Experience:
• Demonstrated commitment to race and social justice.
• Five (5) years project management experience in social work, human services, homelessness, or public policy.
• Five (5) years of supervisory experience.
• Five (5) years of experience in program leadership.

OR a combination of education and/or training and/or experience which provides an equivalent background required to perform the work of the class is required.

Desired Qualifications:
• 10+ years of experience in the human services sector.
• Leadership experience in a government agency.
• Subject matter expertise in current Federal, State and local laws, regulatory codes, ordinances, and procedures relevant to homeless programs, such as those designed to improve/provide outreach and engagement and shelter.
• Demonstrated commitment to the highest level of ethics and integrity.
• Knowledge of COVID 19 systemic adaptations.

Additional Information

Hiring Process Applications are reviewed after the posting closes. Qualified candidates must submit the following to be considered:

1. Completed NEOGOV online application.
2. Cover letter describing how your skills and experience align with the stated job responsibilities and qualifications.
3. Current résumé indicating relevant experience and education.
4. Supplemental questionnaire responses.

Offers of employment are contingent on verification of information provided by the applicant as part of the application process, including potential background check, pre-placement physical exam, and full driver’s abstract.

Please note this job advertisement is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

This recruitment process may be used as needed for up to six months, depending on hiring needs to hire qualified candidates for this position.