Housing Options Advisor - Home Visits

About the role

As demand for affordable housing continues to rise, North Northamptonshire Council is at the forefront of supporting residents facing housing challenges. With increasing pressure on social housing and limited availability, access to the private rented sector (PRS) has become a vital part of our housing solutions offer.

We’ve reshaped our service to meet these challenges head on, with dedicated triage and casework teams, including a pathway for singles, working collaboratively to prevent homelessness and secure sustainable housing outcomes. Our approach is proactive, person-centred, and focused on empowering households to access suitable accommodation, particularly within the PRS.

We are looking home visiting officer to work within triage team assisting clients within their homes.

This will be a demanding role out in the community.

If you're passionate about making a tangible difference in people’s lives and want to be part of a forward-thinking, dynamic team, we’d love to hear from you.

What will you be doing?

You will work collaboratively with households who are homeless, or at risk of homelessness to remove any barriers to their rehousing with a strong focus on prevention and PRS access. You will create, review and update their personalised housing plan to support timely and sustainable outcomes and minimise any stay in temporary accommodation. Working collaboratively with internal and external partners to deliver joined-up support.

You will assess applicants housing needs in the home and make enquiries around homelessness, eligibility for assistance, priority need, and local connection with North Northamptonshire. Where appropriate, you will also consider if they are intentionally homeless.

You will issue clear, legally compliant decision letters that reflect current guidance and case law, and detailing the reasons for your decision.

For further information about the role or an informal chat please contact Ian Cartmell, Housing Advice and Options Manager on 01536 859169.

About you

You will have experience of working in housing within a local authority, housing association or equivalent experience within another organisation.

You will have a proven ability to provide excellent customer care working effectively with others, have good interpersonal skills and be able to adapt to an ever-changing housing landscape.

To succeed in the role, you must have excellent communication skills, be an accomplished negotiator and problem solver and be able to work by your own initiative in a fast-paced environment.

You will be adaptable, resilient, and ready to contribute to a service that’s constantly evolving to meet local needs.

Please see the attached job description and person specification for full details including the essential and desirable criteria for this role.

Our Benefits

Here at North Northamptonshire Council, we’re transforming for the better, using all our creativity and imagination to create the best life for our local people.

You’ll find that we have a wide range of careers that may be more surprising than you think!

Why choose us?

We offer a vibrant working environment with:

• a competitive salary
• a pension scheme, where we pay a significant contribution on top of your contribution. It provides life cover and ill-health protection.
• lots of opportunities to develop your skills, knowledge and potential in a large unitary council
• generous leave entitlement (28 days, rising to 33 days) and bank holidays, plus the option to buy up to an extra 10 days
• hybrid and flexible working arrangements, where practicable for service needs to help you with a healthy work-life balance.

We provide a range of great benefits such as an Employee Assistance Programme, an Employee Benefits Scheme, wellbeing support, travel rates at HMRC rates, as well as supporting a range of active Employee Network Groups.

About us

Our Values and Behaviours

Our values define who we are and how we operate, by forming the foundation for how we interact with our customers, colleagues and provide our services. They are also at the forefront of our decision making and delivery and are:

Customer-focused
Respectful
Efficient
Supportive
Trustworthy

Our key commitments help ensure that the priorities we make, now and in the future, maintain the necessary breadth of focus in those areas that we believe matter most.

Disability Confident Employer

We are proud to be a recognised Disability Confident Employer and is committed to providing an inclusive recruitment process and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role.

Our Employment and Disability Service provides bespoke support to individuals facing barriers to employment, helping them work towards their goals to start, stay and succeed in employment. For further information please click here The Employment and Disability Service (EADS) | North Northamptonshire Council

Armed Forces Community

The council obtained the Gold status award for the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS).

Further information can be found at Jobs and careers | North Northamptonshire Council (northnorthants.gov.uk)