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Project Manager, Tenant Engagement and Special Projects

New York City Department of Housing Preservation & Development
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About the Agency:
 
The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) is the nation’s largest municipal housing preservation and development agency. Its mission is to promote quality housing and diverse, thriving neighborhoods for New Yorkers through loan and development programs for new affordable housing, preservation of the affordability of the existing housing stock, enforcement of housing quality standards, rental subsidies, and educational programs for tenants and building owners. HPD is tasked with fulfilling Mayor Adams’s housing plan "Housing Our Neighbors: A Blueprint for Housing and Homelessness", a comprehensive framework which includes $5 billion in new capital funding, bringing the administration’s planned investment to $22 billion — the largest in the city’s history. This investment, coupled with an aggressive effort to reduce administrative and regulatory barriers, is a multi-pronged strategy to tackle New York City’s affordable housing crisis and bolster access to opportunity, promote economic stability and mobility, improve health and safety, and increase racial equity.
 
Your Team:
 
The Office of Neighborhood Strategies (ONS) is charged with ensuring that HPD’s development and preservation efforts are guided by meaningful community engagement and coordinated with public investments in infrastructure and services, as put forth in the Mayor's Housing Plan.
 
ONS is composed of two divisions and a cross-divisional unit reporting to the First Deputy Commissioner:
 
·        The Division of Planning & Predevelopment (P&P) is central to developing and managing HPD's housing production pipeline from project proposal phases through the land use review and entitlement process, to ensure that HPD's investments contribute to building strong, healthy, resilient neighborhoods in all five boroughs.
 
·        The Division of Neighborhood Development & Stabilization (ND&S) leads the agency's commitment to neighborhood planning and strategic preservation through engagement with tenants, landlords, community leaders, and neighborhood stakeholders as we work to enable strong and healthy neighborhoods anchored by affordable housing.
 
·        The Strategic Initiatives Unit leads special ONS initiatives and provides essential technical, planning, and policy support to staff and the First Deputy Commissioner.
 
 
Your Impact:
 
As the Project Manager for Tenant Engagement and Special Projects for the Division of Neighborhood Development and Stabilization, you will support the development, management, and implementation of innovative programs to educate tenants about their rights and available resources and to protect them from landlord harassment and displacement. This team implements these strategies in close collaboration with a wide range of community stakeholders. The Partners in Preservation program, a data-driven initiative first launched by HPD in 2019, is one of the core programs the Project Manager will support. Responding to increased speculation, harassment, and displacement in rent-regulated housing, the agency developed Partners in Preservation to foster closer collaboration between tenant organizing groups, government agencies, and legal services providers to stabilize tenants. The program is highlighted in Mayor Adams’s housing plan as a key initiative to preserve rent-regulated housing and counteract tenant harassment. As a result the program is expanding citywide this year.
 
 
Your Role:
 
The Division of Neighborhood Development and Stabilization is seeking an enthusiastic candidate with tenant or community organizing experience, excellent project management and policy analysis skills, knowledge of housing and other issues, the ability to effectively collaborate with community and government partners, and a commitment to racial equity and social justice. Your role will be to help develop and implement the Citywide Partners in Preservation program, develop and lead new strategies to protect tenants from displacement, and conduct policy analysis on a wide range of tenant issues in close collaboration with other team members. The selected candidate will join a growing team with wide-ranging professional backgrounds and report to the Deputy Director.
 
 
Your Responsibilities:
 
Program Management
  • Help manage the Citywide Partners in Preservation program and serve as the primary project manager for one of the selected program target areas. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Assisting with the ongoing procurement process to select tenant organizing groups to implement the program
  • Building and maintaining relationships with selected groups, program staff, and tenant organizing teams
  • Facilitating regular strategy meetings with program staff and tenant organizers
  • Coordinating both internally and externally to implement interventions in target buildings
  • Respond to inquiries and provide strategic advice and information regarding municipal programs and procedures to tenant organizers
  • Help develop and implement new programs to educate tenants about their rights and tenant organizers about the resources available to them to better protect tenants from landlord harassment and displacement, such as Tenant Clinics, Tenant Classes, and Tenant Organizer Trainings.
  • Build relationships with and obtain input from a wide range of stakeholders, including community-based organizations (CBOs), legal services providers, residents, City and State agencies, Community Boards, and elected officials
 
Policy Analysis
  • Identify issues that may necessitate policy solutions, conduct research on these issues, propose and advocate for potential solutions, which may involve seeding new projects
 
Communication
  • At the discretion of the Deputy Director, represent the agency and the Tenant Engagement and Special Projects Unit at public meetings, resource fairs, tabling events, and other forums targeting tenants
  • Develop goals and activities for public workshops and events, manage the logistics, prepare and facilitate presentations
  • Create clearly articulated and compelling materials, such as presentations, maps, data visualizations, and plain-language explanations of complex policy issues for both internal and external audiences
 
Minimum Requirements:
 
  1. A baccalaureate degree from an accredited college and two years of experience in community work or community centered activities in an area related to the duties described above; or
  2. High school graduation or equivalent and six years of experience in community work or community centered activities in an area related to the duties as described above; or
  3. Education and/or experience which is equivalent to “1” or “2” above. However, all candidates must have at least one year of experience as described in “1” above
 
Preferred Skills:
  
  • Professional Experience: A minimum of two years of professional experience in a related field is preferred. Experience with tenant organizing or providing legal services to tenants is strongly preferred.
  • Project Management Skills: Proven ability to manage complex projects with multiple internal and external stakeholders; to receive direction and anticipate next steps; to think through, communicate, document, organize, and execute on project goals; to work independently and take initiative; and to meet deadlines.
  • Subject-Matter Expertise: Knowledge of housing and other urban issues (with an emphasis on issues impacting low-income tenants) is strongly preferred. Familiarity with New York government and housing issues and/or experience developing anti-displacement and preservation strategies in New York City or other high-cost cities is a plus.
  • Commitment to Racial Equity and Social Justice: An understanding of the historic and systemic causes of social inequities and a proven commitment to undo these wrongs.
  • Relationship-Building Skills: Ability to relate with people from different backgrounds and to present information clearly to people from different educational and literacy levels. Community organizing experience or provision of legal services serving tenants is a plus. Existing relationships with New York City CBOs and legal services providers supporting low-income tenants are welcomed.
  • Creative Thinking and Problem Solving: Ability to think creatively, critically, and strategically, and to consider complex policy programs through both a micro-level and macro-level lens and from an equity perspective.
  • Policy Analysis Skills: Experience conducting policy research and sharing findings in memoranda and reports preferred.
  • Communication Skills: Strong written, verbal, and presentation skills. Proven ability to produce high-quality materials in a variety of formats for internal and external audiences and experience facilitating meetings.
  • Good Judgment: Ability to analyze a situation, understand when additional input is needed, resolve issues independently, and escalate when appropriate.