Pros
Almost everyone that works there is really supportive and nice in day to day relationships. Communication and structure are strong for routine daily matters and administrative systems are well developed. Benefits are very good. They do training and staff teambuilding frequently. Work life balance is good. The organization is well regarded and volunteer program is strong.
Cons
The supportive and friendly culture ends at the instant a serious ethical discussion begins. There is a great deal of training and talking but the organization takes ethics for granted and does not question or adapt it's programs to align with modern service models beyond a superficial parsing of concepts like trauma informed care. They test clients in permanent housing very aggressively and invasively for drug or alcohol use and instead of really helping them they use unethical processes to attempt to remove them from housing before they have an opportunity to understand their legal rights if they find a single infraction. There is a high degree of hypocrisy. For example, they promote health care for the poor but make sure that managers carefully monitor the low wage pt staff hours so they don't have to cover their care. They also serve hard liquor in open bar at the fundraiser but kick the seriously ill and indigent seniors the money raised supposedly helps out of housing for drinking one beer. Many managers are under-credentialed and have attained positions by being there a long time. These are good hearted people who just don't know better due to dearth of substantive clinical and ethical training and leadership in housing departments. The people with strong clinical credentials and strong ethics keep them very quiet and try not to make waves while doing what they can, because they care about people and have families to feed, or else they don't stay long when they recognize how shallow the ethics are on the inside. Some sues a really large number of the folks they serve in housing and they have a high rate of eviction and displacement. Do a dc case search and you will see hundreds of cases in only the last 2 or 3 years. If you compare to other nonprofits or low income landlords in similar work or of similar size you won't find anyone who sues that large a portion of tenants or service recipients especially for matters beyond nonpayment of rent. This reflects a fraction of the displacement from housing they actually create because many of the people who they displace they displace using systems and processes intended to discourage and prevent them from effectively being able to receive legal representation or understand their rights. They do not follow HSRA in most if any of their housing programs. They say that HSRA does not apply to their housing because of a technicality in regards language on source of funding in the law. An organization concerned with "empowerment" going to great lengths to exempt itself from an independent legal process to insure city organizations serving the homeless are treating them fairly should be cause for concern if you are looking for a work environment with strong ethics. There is a lot of focus on "morality" and "accountability" with accountability applied mostly to clients and low level staff and not so much to management. Steer clear if you are serious about solid and consistent ethics and believe that part of social service work is to always act in best interest of the client. They put organizational order, money, property and power first and clients and ethics behind the interest of the organization. They have a really strong public image machine and it covers a multitude of sins. The top leadership truly believes their own PR, and are quite sincere in thinking their questionable displacement practices and extremely strict regulations benefit the poor by maintaining community order at the expense of any individual who falls out of line. They maintain this sense of security by limiting and stifling meaningful ethical discussion and replacing it with surface level substitutes. The culture is paternalistic and Orwellian.
