Pros
- The Deputy Executive Director and Executive Director are very, very nice people with huge hearts. - The integrity in Senior Management is unrivaled. - The people that work here are (mostly) really nice. - You can't argue with the mission or how qualified they are or how hard they work to achieve it. - They really, truly make a difference in the area they serve. - Senior Management lives and breathes the mission. - You learn a lot about how to manage and perform your job with little to no resources. It makes you feel competent to perform any job anywhere. - Chances to volunteer within the agency and see the mission at work come up- like key ceremonies and Earth Day cleanups. - Housing Hope has a great name within the community and they earned it- they really do put the needs of the clients first and the funding received goes really, really far. Please don't think my review states anything to the contrary- this review is ONLY for my experience working here. - They are growing and expanding and increasing their capacity to serve all of the time. The mission is very specific and they focus on that- a lot of places try to diversify too much and shoot themselves in the foot. They are an expert on what they do. - They recently improved the benefits- good move.
Cons
- The pay stinks. They preach living wage jobs but only a handful of people working there actually earn the living wage. - Lack of personnel management- they simply just don't manage their people, so the people surrounding them have to adjust and work around the problem person. If they're experiencing real problems with personnel they just reclassify them. - If you complain or have anything negative to say about your job, you must hate homeless people; it seems as if there's a belief that the intrinsic reward of working here should be good enough to erase all of the struggles you encounter. - So many of us are struggling to pay our own bills but are expected to put the needs of the clients ahead of our own. It makes the mission seem two-faced- we put out our own families' well-being to prioritize the needs of their families. - There is a huge power struggle. All of the power lies within a few people and the underlings have literally none, so it's like starving animals scrapping for resources. The ways in which people (subtly) step on each other to climb their way up the power ladder amaze me everyday I'm there. - Nearly every job task you perform has bottlenecks. Nothing is simple or easy. - Lazy people- I often come to the printer or copier to find it jammed and the person who jammed it is nowhere to be found. My time is important, too. People pretend not to know information so they don't have to do more work. - Little things that add up- space is at a premium so sometimes when I want to get my lunch I can't because a confidential meeting is happening in the lunch room. Free food is a rarity. Parking is always a problem. - If anything happens- layoffs, lack of funding etc.- the first thing that's said must be "how will this impact the clients?" or you will be deemed a selfish person or "not mission-focused" for worrying about yourself. - Certain departments get all of the glory- we're ALL important. - Certain things that should be confidential are common knowledge- who got what raise, who is getting in trouble for doing what, what was said in the Director's Meeting- but we enjoy hearing these things because of the lack of honest communication. - A few good-natured people really seem to get taken advantage of.