A day in the life of a housing navigator varies. Some days, I am in the office all day filling out check requests, documenting cases, and coordinating bed deliveries. On other days, I am in the community viewing apartments, picking up donations, and dropping off supplies for clients. Most days are a combination of the two.

Most importantly, in the housing department, we have moved dozens and dozens of people into apartments over the last 10 months. My partner in crime Dasha and I have filled the JFS van on so many occasions with all kinds of household goods, I lost track a long time ago.  

Keep reading to take a peek into what one day in the life of a Housing Navigator at JFS is like!

I was in the office all morning dealing with a client’s complicated past due utility and rent payments. Social Care Network Funds (Medicaid 1115 Waiver) program covered her portion. A quick aside: the Medicaid 1115 program really interested me from the beginning because it relies on improving health-related social needs- putting in place the social supports that make someone more likely to be healthy throughout their life.  Thus, the impetus is that if we can get vulnerable people secure housing, it would help alleviate health issues on the individual level, and also in the alleviating of those individualized health issues, we could collectively reduce some of the burden on public health.

 So, not a very exciting morning, but I was happy to be able to help my client.

I have to say, when I was reminded on that day about this short piece, I happened to be on my way out to meet a client, so I resigned to document my day through photo as best I could. No two days are the same in this profession I was meeting a client out front of her apartment building to drop off some forms she needed to fill out.

After waiting a few minutes, my client came out. We had never met in person, though we had talked on the phone several times. I said that it was great to finally meet in person, and she returned that sentiment. I’m looking forward to getting to know her as we start to work on her case.

From there, I met another one of my clients. He was homeless when I first met him, but we secured him an apartment towards the end of the summer.

 In this fellow’s case, as a former substance user he was also a high-Medicaid user, but with the assistance of some social care services is now on the other side of an in-patient substance use treatment program. He has a catch phrase: whenever I talk to him, I might say, ‘how are you?’ or ‘how’s it going?’ and he replies, ‘excited and ignited’. His positivity is infectious, and speaking with him always brightens my day. He has been a positive influence on my approach to housing – seeing his focus and determination has kept me ‘excited and ignited’, and I try to bring that energy to each client I work with.

He has been a positive influence on my approach to housing – seeing his focus and determination has kept me ‘excited and ignited’, and I try to bring that energy to each client I work with. Anyways, he was set to start this work training program the Monday after I met him. The work training program provides him with a day bus pass for each day he attends training, but only once he starts, so he was worried about making it to the training on the first day. He called me earlier in the week to say that money was tight and asked if I had access to bus passes. I have a friend who works at NFTA who was able to get me a handful of bus passes, so I went to the client’s house that day to deliver the passes. In the Medicaid 1115 program, we don’t help people to get jobs necessarily, but we are tasked with being sure that the client is working towards the ability to be self-sustaining once the 6 months that the program covers rent is over. We ended up sitting on the stoop of his new apartment for around 20 minutes and chatting about his plans for the future.

After that, I was off to see a single-family house for a mother of 4 and her family, who’d all been contending with an incredibly difficult living situation since early this year. I won’t get into the nitty gritty, but just to say this one was one of my first cases, and my most complicated one (spoiler: as of the time of writing this, they have officially moved into the house I saw on this day!). The photos show what a nice space this house is, and the landlord really worked hard to get it ready for my clients.

 Another important note is that when I first started in housing, I met a very good landlord who takes pride in his handy-work and fixes each apartment he rents (he is also property manager for several others). He personally introduced me to the landlord I met this day, and this second landlord is much the same. Securing housing for folks who do not meet the requirements set by traditional landlords can be difficult. People might not have great credit, or they might not have proof of income at the time of renting, or both. Most places say they are ‘equal opportunity’ for renters, but these are just words and insurmountable barriers to housing remain for many clients. As a result, word of mouth is incredibly important, as is establishing a baseline respect and creating relationships with the kinds of landlords noted above. Because, of course, word of mouth can lead you, as well, into some dank and dreary places. But the house I saw that day, was very nice!

JFS’ housing program is still young, but we are a close-knit group of 3 case workers and our manager, and we are learning every day. We are putting together a good network of landlords who we have continued to work with, and I look forward to continuing to be a part of building this new program. We are focused now that we’ve learned the program, to tightening our processes, and building relationships with landlords and other organizations. This day was a snapshot, and not fully indicative of the day to day, but I think it does give a good overview of the kinds of work we are doing. Shout out to my comrades on the housing team: Andrew, Dasha, and Yasna.

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