Job Description

About HPD, the Office of Housing Access and Stability:

The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) is the nation’s largest municipal housing preservation and development agency. Its mission is to promote quality housing and diverse, thriving neighborhoods for New Yorkers through loan and development programs for new affordable housing, preservation of the affordability of the existing housing stock, enforcement of housing quality standards, and educational programs for tenants and building owners.

Mission

• The Office of Housing Access and Stability ( “Housing Access”) consists of the divisions of Housing Opportunity, Tenant and Owner Resources, Housing Stability, Budget and Program Operations, and Program Policy and Innovation. The mission of the office is to ensure fair, efficient, and transparent access to affordable housing. The Office provides subsidies, placement services, and tools that connect New Yorkers to affordable housing and ensures vulnerable households in subsidized housing have the support they need to be safely housed. Housing Access is committed to expanding housing choices, affirmatively furthering fair housing, and stabilizing the financial health of buildings.

Your Team:

Housing Opportunity and Placement Services (HOPS) consists of two divisions within Housing Access: the Division of Housing Opportunity and the Division of Tenant and Owner Resources. The Division of Housing Opportunity administers the housing lottery and homeless placements programs which connect thousands of New Yorkers per year with City-assisted affordable housing. It also crafts policy and procedures to ensure that these programs offer equal opportunity to all applicants and affirmatively further fair housing. The Division of Tenant and Owner Resources administers rental assistance programs including Section 8, Shelter Plus Care, and Moderate Rehabilitation, serving over 40,000 households and 9,000 landlords in all five boroughs.

Your Impact:

Housing Opportunity and Placement Services is driving time-sensitive, high-profile, and cross-division process streamlining initiatives that are of high priority to HPD and to the Administration, and you will play a central role in their implementation. Examples include planning, tracking, and coordinating HPD’s role in expediting homeless placement and housing lottery processes through process, technology, and policy innovation. Your work will help the City serve its most vulnerable residents faster, provide owners and tenants with improved experiences participating in rental subsidy programs, reduce administrative burden, optimize lease-up of available units, ease pressure on the homeless shelter system, and allow individuals families to find stable, affordable housing quickly and fairly.

Your Role:

The Special Projects Advisor reports to and works closely with the Associate Commissioner of HOPS on implementing high priority housing placement projects, including commitments in the City’s Housing Blueprint. You will collaborate with program managers and leadership in the teams of the new Office of Housing Access and Stability to contribute to its first set of highly anticipated and coordinated housing placement initiatives as a cohesive organizational structure. This position offers a wide degree of latitude for independent initiative.

Your Responsibilities:

• Guide and manage implementation of a designated set of short, medium, and long-term initiatives that, in coordination with the Department of Social Services, expedite homeless households’ moves from shelter into permanent, affordable housing

o Coordinate progress updates, troubleshoot and escalate issues, and help manage communication among HPD teams and our partners

o Prepare qualitative and quantitative reports on progress of individual process, policy, and technology efforts

Assist with setting performance targets, establishing and refining tracking tools, and reporting

o Work with Division of Strategic Operations and Analytics

Support business teams in the development of cornerstone technology efforts that will transform the processing and user experience of homeless referral processes and the administration of rental subsidies:

o Tech solution(s) to digitize, help expedite, and offer stakeholder dashboards for homeless referrals into non-supportive housing

o As needed, coordinate with Housing Access team that leads development of new system to modernize and streamline administration and customer service related to administration of Section 8 and other rental subsidies

Lead engagement with affordable housing developers and marketing agents

o Gather feedback, assess opportunities for process, policy, and technology improvement, and coordinate regular engagement with key stakeholders

o Contribute to communication of progress on key housing placement initiatives in memos, presentations, reports, and policy briefs

Identify opportunities to align goals, policies, mutual program enhancement project planning, and communications across the divisions of Housing Access:

o Work with the division of Program Policy and Innovation to enhance program administration across Housing Access, making interaction with housing-seekers, voucher-holders and landlords consistent wherever possible

o Work with the Division of Budget and Program Operations to share technology program updates, assist with user testing and feedback as needed

As required, temporarily or permanently supervise staff as part of new programs or initiatives

Lead and support other projects as needed

Only candidates permanent in the Administrative Staff Analyst civil service title or comparable title will be considered for this position.

Qualifications

1. A master's degree from an accredited college in economics, finance, accounting, business or public administration, human resources management, management science, operations research, organizational behavior, industrial psychology, statistics, personnel administration, labor relations, psychology, sociology, human resources development, political science, urban studies or a closely related field, and two years of satisfactory full-time professional experience in one or a combination of the following: working with the budget of a large public or private concern in budget administration, accounting, economic or financial administration, or fiscal or economic research; in management or methods analysis, operations research, organizational research or program evaluation; in personnel or public administration, recruitment, position classification, personnel relations, employee benefits, staff development, employment program planning/administration, labor market research, economic planning, social services program planning/evaluation, or fiscal management; or in a related area. 18 months of this experience must have been in an executive, managerial, administrative or supervisory capacity. Supervision must have included supervising staff performing professional work in the areas described above; or

2. A baccalaureate degree from an accredited college and four years of professional experience in the areas described in "1" above, including the 18 months of executive, managerial, administrative or supervisory experience, as described in "1" above.

Additional Information

The City of New York is an inclusive equal opportunity employer committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce and providing a work environment that is free from discrimination and harassment based upon any legally protected status or protected characteristic, including but not limited to an individual's sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, gender identity, or pregnancy.