Are you a leftist who is sick of working long hours just so that your boss can buy a second house?
Do you struggle finding employment because you don’t have a degree (classist bullshit), or have a degree in a field you didn’t end up liking?
Do you have any personal experience with homelessness, drug addiction, mental illness, or just struggling to fit in with capitalist society? This is like, the one job where that helps a lot.
Do you have an understanding of the structural issues that cause people to become unemployed or homeless (it’s capitalism. capitalism is the answer)? Live in a medium-to-large city where social services exist in parallel with the for-profit job market?
Why not try a new career working in Homeless Services?
I’ve been a shelter worker for most of the last decade, and lemme tell you, it’s pretty great. I’ve done everything from working on-call night shifts, to managing entire shelters hosting 100+ people. I didn’t go to school for this, and I had no social work experience prior. I was just some trans girl in her 20s with a little bit of lived experience (living in my car) who answered a craigslist ad, but I stuck with the work cause it’s like, hella rewarding and stuff.
Most of the job is just maintaining a safe environment for the guests - cleaning the facility, preparing meals if your shelter does its own food, signing people up for services (showers, laundry, beds, depending on program), with a little bit of case management on the side - and they’ll teach you that part. Depending on the shelter, you might be busy buzzing around chatting with people (like 90% just being friendly, not even “work talk”), or you might just be chilling, ready to pop up if anything exciting happens. If you work night shift, you might even get to spend the night on your phone while everyone is asleep (depends heavily on the shelter).
There are some substantial downsides, not gonna sugar coat it.
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It can be stressful dealing with people going through what is likely the most difficult period of their life. They aren’t normally assholes, life is making them that way.
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Sometimes said stressed-out people will have emotional outbursts, that can be very disruptive and sometimes scary or even dangerous. You learn a lot about deescalating angry people (which is actually a really good skill for a leftist to have, if you do any protesting!).
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Sometimes people fucking die, and you’ll be the first responder. You will get good at using narcan and doing CPR. I have a graveyard in my head and have known so many people who died either in shelter, or on the streets some time after I met them through work. I’ve had people die while I was trying to save them. Sometimes you do EMT stuff. It does weigh on you a bit.
But the rewards are so much more!
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When you tell people what you do, they’ll think very highly of you. Our stereotypes are sick as hell and people will talk about how caring and wonderful you are. Try it out on dating apps!
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It’s peaceful at work today so I spent all day posting. I expect tomorrow to also be mostly chill, so I will be posting more.
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I’m in good with a lot of houseless people in my city, and this has been helpful more than once. It’s cool having people.
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Actually doesn’t pay too bad. I make about 50k in a large coastal city, enough to pay rent and have a modest living. With my shelter worker bf making around the same, we get by alright in this expensive city.
Any other shelter workers here? Anyone in homeless services in general? What got you into this work?
Also, does anyone have any questions about what the job is like or how to get into it?
This is called “lived experience” and when I’m hiring people it is the equivalent of a college degree.
The best way to get a foot in the door at most shelters is to look for on-call work, especially on swing and grave shifts. At least in my city, there are a lot of experienced on-call shelter workers vying for full-time positions, especially day shift. At some agencies, on-call is the defacto entryway into the field. If I’m looking for a full time worker and someone has already worked several successful on-call shifts and is a known and appreciated presence in my shelter, I’m probably hiring them over an external applicant.
Which kinda sucks to be fair. There are a lot of good people who would probably be great at this work but don’t have that kind of freedom to work those weird shifts, or need full-time out the gate and struggle to juggle multiple shelter agencies like many oncalls here do. But in many agencies, the oncalls are the biggest department and it’s just kind of the culture of how we hire people.
As far as resume and cover letter goes, having good customer service skills/history goes a long way. The job is all about interacting with people, and even though it’s usually super casual, management likes to see that you’ve done it professionally. Knowledge of local social services, like you’d get if you ever applied for Medicaid or food stamps, also helps but can be trained. Knowing what 211 is, is very good. If your city has a “street newspaper”, namedrop it in the interview.
But also, “on-call” doesn’t necessarily mean “part time”. I was working 40 hours a week night shift oncall before being hired for my first permanent role. I was just the person who was there, who showed up.
oh yeah, and this lived experience thing - it doesn’t have to be in the past. I have worked with many people who were experiencing houselessness while working, and there’s usually some rules about boundaries with the clients, and not receiving services from the agency you are working for, but yeah - shelter work can be a pretty good job for people who are homeless. After all, you have every reason to be like super empathetic to the people living in shelter, provided you can maintain professional boundaries.
One time I was working a shift when a young man who was staying at my shelter burst in through the front door shouting about how he was “done with that crazy woman!”, only to see one of my coworkers come in behind him crying about him breaking up with her. That was pretty wild - don’t do that.