Housing Justice and Advocacy Organizer
Salary: 55k-62k
Full Time, Exempt
Jackson County, Oregon
Compensation and Benefits:
The hiring range for this position is $55-62,000 per year, commensurate with experience and skills.
About Coalicíon Fortaleza:
Coalición Fortaleza is a dynamic, Latinx-led grassroots nonprofit organization that is growing rapidly to serve our diverse communities of southern Oregon. Our starting benefits include a fun and flexible work environment, generous paid holidays, PTO and a membership in a multi-site co-work space.
After 90 days, our benefits package will include employer-paid dental and health coverage for full-time employees and professional development opportunities.
Application review begins April 15th, 2023. Open until March 31st, 2023.
Hiring Process
How to apply:
Send your resume and a cover letter or a short video to us at apply@coalicionfortaleza.org explaining why you are interested in filling this role and any relevant experience you have that might make you a good fit. Be sure to include in the subject line, “Housing Justice and Advocacy Organizer: [FIRST, LAST NAME].
If you have access needs to make this application process accessible please send us an email to apply@coalicionfortaleza.org detailing how we can make this process accessible for you and be sure to include in the subject line “Access Request: Housing and Advocacy Organizer Position”.
Job Description
Housing Justice and Advocacy Organizer
Land - Culture - Community - Legacy
Coalición Fortaleza is seeking a Housing Justice and Advocacy Organizer who is an engaging, self-directed and dynamic individual passionate about housing justice and empowering our Latinx and Indigenous communities through education, advocacy and cultural organizing. This person will be primarily responsible for leading our housing justice and just recovery advocacy efforts to advance the demands and priorities of our Latinx and indigenous communities in the local fire recovery efforts. This person takes initiative and accompanies our community patiently in helping break down the barriers for our people to have access to important services and resources. We hope the person in this role will grow into a strong advocate for our community in our housing justice efforts long-term as we continue to organize in the face of climate change and gentrification.This position will allow Coalición Fortaleza to grow our capacity to ensure that disenfranchised communities have access to affordable housing and homeownership opportunities in our community.
ORGANIZATIONAL OVERVIEW:
Coalición Fortaleza (CF) works to create a future where every Latinx & Indigenous family in our community can live with dignity, peace and justice by focusing on changing and creating programs that support social, cultural, and economic wealth. We want our people to thrive. That is why our work is focused on advocating for the development of housing solutions that create pathways to home ownership for low-income families in Jackson County. We began this journey by meeting with 60 community members who were brainstorming ways to restore fire-destroyed Latino/a/x and indigenous neighborhoods and restore ownership status in the form of resident-owned communities (ROC’s), CLT models and/or other permanent housing solutions.
CF has been partnering with CASA of Oregon for over two years now and together, with CASA as the purchaser, we successfully purchased and are in the process of rebuilding Talent Mobile Estates Mobile Home Park (TME) in one of the most severely fire-damaged neighborhoods in the Rogue Valley. This will be the first resident-owned community in Southern Oregon and we hope this is only the beginning steps of our journey to rebuild our communities into something better than what we lost in Almeda Fire. CF’s role has been to meaningfully engage our community in every step of the rebuilding process of TME, as well as to provide leadership development, and remove the barriers that exist for our people that keep us from being able to access services and resources. We know that ROC is one viable model of establishing community ownership, preserving affordable housing and building power and resilience for our communities. We want to create avenues for our people to establish power over their lives, communities and futures.
Over the next years, CF will support and follow up with about 200 Latinx, Indigenous, and farmworker families we surveyed and include them in the rebuilding process and ensure that our collective needs are at the front. Another project CF is working in partnership with CASA of Oregon is an affordable rental multi-family housing project that will serve farmworker families in the Rogue Valley. There are other affordable homeownership project(s) in Jackson County that will be available in 2023-2024 that will prioritize fire impacted individuals and families and we will be following those projects and letting the families we are working with know about those opportunities. The Housing and Advocacy Organizer will be working on REOregon efforts locally.
In November 2021, the U.S. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced it was awarding Oregon $422 million in Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds for recovery efforts in response to the 2020 Labor Day Fires across the state of Oregon. These funds will be administered by Oregon Housing and Community Services, this money will pay for new programs to help our displaced communities in the recovery process CF needs to be prepared to ensure that these programs are accessible to our community and that our people are adequately supported in having a just recovery. Our Latinx and Indigenous low-income communities already had difficulty navigating FEMA and state funding and we cannot keep delaying folks the support they need in our efforts to create a just recovery process. The Housing and Advocacy Organizer will follow this program and work in collaboration with ACCESS, OHCS, RCH, OHA, and other local agencies who are serving fire survivors and working on housing.
Preferred Qualifications:
Must be bilingual in Spanish, bicultural Latino/a/x and/or Indigenous.
Must have over 5 years of advocacy, organizing, or program coordination experience and/or a B.A or B.S Degree.
A collaborative, team-supportive attitude, as well as the ability to work independently
Must have working knowledge of community engagement / and Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing.
Must be able to advocate for themselves in asking for the support they need to thrive in this role
Must have the ability to communicate compassionately and respectfully in a trauma-informed way with those we serve and work with as well as with staff.
Possesses strong verbal and written communication skills
Must have familiarity with basic principles of finance and budget management and willingness to grow their working knowledge
Ability to work independently and to collaborate with agency Executives and senior Coordinators
Experience working in good relationship with partners from a variety of fields, (such as other social service agencies, healthcare systems, government, education and advocacy groups)
Ability to effectively manage and disseminate confidential and sensitive information
Work effectively within a team-oriented management structure
Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously
Possesses excellent time management and organizational skills
Computer proficiency and familiarity with Google Workspace tools. Competency in using Word, Excel and database programs
Be responsive to emails, calls, texts and other communications tools.
Other Knowledge, Skills, and Experience desired:
• Minimum three years of experience serving individuals and families from diverse backgrounds in a social service, education or housing setting. Experience can be professional, volunteer or lived
• Excellent customer service, supported with compassionate and diplomatic written and oral communication skills; effective in serving and supporting diverse audiences
• A curiosity in exploring new, innovative ways to support homeowners in a holistic, meaningful and engaging way
• Ability to balance big picture, long term goals of program with day-to-day attention to detail, multi-tasking skills and timely follow through
• Experience with content drafting for print and electronic outreach materials a plus
