Pros
Hands down, boots on the ground staff are the best and brightest of Los Angeles. Great opportunity to learn about the current Housing crisis and the challenges of working with individuals affected by homelessness and mental illness. The work will prepare you for any job with many transferable skills. For clinical social workers, individual and group supervision is offered. Midlevel managers are supportive and caring. Hard and demanding work.
Cons
Pay. Pay. Pay. Poverty level to below poverty level wages. Difficult to see upper management in high end cars, motorcycles, and planes while staff suffer food and housing insecurity. No work/ life balance. Toxic Upper management. Primarily Caucasian Males, operating under the old standard hierarchal/patriarchal management model where hard work (especially by mostly minority and women staff) goes unacknowledged and unappreciated, bonuses flow upward, directives/mandates down. Staff are only as useful as a billable entity, billing bullying on a frequent and regular basis. Hard and demanding work. Work place dangers run high: bed bugs, client assaults (verbal and physical) on staff are common, as well as environmental exposures related to outreach, vicarious trauma, limited to NO support for pairing up in teams (can't bill for it, so the onerous is on YOU to make up your billable hours.) Police quoted as saying they "prayed for us..." No on site security and staff are expected to take turns policing the Money Management program. Limited opportunities for advancement.