Home Health Aide

Home Health Aide

At Avalon, housing is a human right. Our mission is to build healthy, safe and inclusive supportive housing communities as a long-term solution to homelessness.

Avalon Housing is a non-profit supportive housing provider. Supportive housing is a combination of affordable housing paired with services, such as case management. We don't just help people find housing, we help people stay and thrive in their homes.

If you are passionate about creating more diverse, inclusive, and equitable communities where all people are welcome, Avalon may be a good fit for you.

The individuals served by this position may face many challenges including multi-morbid conditions, mental illness, substance abuse disorders, and/or chronic medical conditions alongside a history of chronic homelessness. The Home Health Aide position will provide hands-on support with these clients in their homes, to help ensure their well-being and maintain their housing. Provided services include apartment cleaning, laundry cleaning, skills coaching, and well-being assessments.

Job Responsibilities:

In conjunction with the Team Leader and other staff, Home Health Aides are responsible for providing individual, in-home assistance as needed to support tenants in maintaining stable housing. These tasks include, but are not limited to:

• Working with Avalon clients throughout the community, working in their apartments supporting their housing permanency.
• Cleaning and organizing tenants' apartments as described in tenant's treatment plan or inspection results, in order to assist tenants with maintaining housing. This may include independently sweeping, vacuuming, washing floors, washing dishes, washing kitchen counters and sinks, cleaning the bathroom, changing bed linen, taking out garbage/trash, dusting and picking up, etc.
• Assisting with laundry chores when assigned, including helping by getting laundry to machines, sorting, handling soap containers, placing laundry into machines, operating machine controls, handling wet laundry, drying, folding and storing laundry.
• Assisting with meal preparation and clean-up, including helping with planning menus, washing, peeling, slicing, opening packages, cans and bags, mixing ingredients, lifting pots/pans, reheating food, cooking, operating stove/microwave, setting the table, serving the meal, washing/drying/putting away dishes, etc.
• Participate in shopping with tenants or individually, for food, hygienic products, and homecare products.
• Teaching tenants proper cleaning techniques, where appropriate, through demonstration and guidance. Will work to incorporate tenants into the cleaning routine, to teach cleaning skills and habits.
• Recognizing potential crisis situations, analyzes such situations accurately, develops strategies to deal with such situations, and informs the supervisor when such incidents arise.
• Recognizing potential emergency situations, analyzes situations accurately, develops strategies to deal with such situations e.g. medical issues, dealing with client's aggressive behavior to ensure no harm comes to the client, staff and/or the public.
• Assisting the case management team in identifying potential problems. Provides input to the team with regard to the development of client program plans.
• Working cooperatively with clinical, property management, maintenance, and other staff onsite in addition to visiting providers; refer tenants to clinical and other staff as necessary
• Monitoring clients' well-being and sharing observations with the team.
• Assists clients in attending appointments when necessary and provides transportation.
• Providing emotional support and feedback to clients (and their families and friends where concerned).
• Maintaining written reports regarding clients' activities and progress. Ensures that all required documentation is complete and accurate.
• Participating in group planning and helps develop individual activity plans which focus on the special needs of each client served by the home/program.
• Providing lay counseling support and life skills training to clients.
• Operating office equipment such as: personal computers, photocopiers, facsimile machines, or printers.
• Maintaining up-to-date knowledge of internal fire safety regulations and procedures, and other emergency procedures. Ensures health and safety standards are maintained.
• Performing other related duties as required.

Supplemental Job Duties:

• Work with clients in their homes, in community centers, and in the larger community
• Assist tenants with conflict resolution among tenants and neighbors
• Attend and participate in staff meetings, retreats and professional training sessions
• Facilitate group transportation as needed
• Cover appointments, transportation needs, and Residential Support Specialist shifts as needed.

Required Qualifications:

• At least one year experience in human services, preferably working with similar populations, including people who are homeless, people with mental illness, chronic health, and/or addiction disorders

Desired Skills and Abilities:

• Basic understanding of homelessness and various characteristics of the homeless adult population; experience with the issues of mental illness and chemical dependency preferred.
• Ability to effectively work with diverse populations in a non-judgmental way
• Capacity to respond to crisis situations
• Strong communication skills – both verbal and written
• Strong problem-solving skills
• Ability to recognize appropriate boundaries with clients
• Ability to work as part of a team
• Must possess a highly positive and enthusiastic attitude and strong commitment toward helping those in need
• Interest and experience in working with individuals who are difficult to engage and refer to traditional programs, subscribe to a philosophy of tolerance and ability to engage with individuals in their current stage of change, expressed knowledge, and acceptance.
• Ability to communicate and work effectively with staff from various backgrounds
• Avalon Housing is dedicated to eliminating racial inequities. Successful candidates will demonstrate the ability to work well with multicultural communities.

Physical Demands:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee will be required to be on their feet for long periods of time, to lift and carry items weighing up to 25 pounds, to reach above their head, to effectively operate common cleaning tools (ex. mop, bucket, broom, dustbin), to transport tenants in vehicles, to communicate with other persons by talking and hearing, and to operate computer hardware systems.

A valid driver's license and reliable transportation is required.

Reports to: Miller Manor Team Leader

Status: Full-time, hourly, non-exempt

Salary: $20.00/hourly

Schedule: Monday – Friday 9 am to 5 pm

Avalon Housing is an equal opportunity employer and actively seeks applicants from diverse backgrounds. This includes but is not limited to people living with disabilities or mental health conditions, and with lived experience with homelessness or recovery from a substance use disorder. Avalon also encourages those with criminal histories to apply. Avalon doesn't request information about criminal histories unless and until an offer of employment is extended. Avalon may exclude someone based on criminal history if it determines the criminal history is related to or directly conflicts with the responsibilities of the position.