Department: Homelessness and Supportive Housing
Salary range: $109,434.00 - $143,234.00
Role type: Temporary Provisional What does this mean?
Hours: Full-time

Application Opening: 3/27/2024
Application Deadline: May close at any time but no sooner than 4/11/2024
Recruitment ID: List ID 146122; RTF0146118

Appointment Type

Temporary Provisional. This position is limited to no more than 3 years in duration. This temporary position is excluded by the Charter from the competitive Civil Service examination process. It is considered "at will" and shall serve at the discretion of the Department Head. This position will be subject to the Permanent Civil Service examination process at a later date. Successful participation in the Permanent Civil Service examination and selection through an open competitive process is needed in order to be considered for the permanent appointment.

Who We Are 

Through the provision of coordinated, compassionate, and high‐quality services, the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) strives to make homelessness in San Francisco rare, brief, and one time. The Department provides assistance and support to homeless and at‐risk youth, adults, and families to prevent imminent episodes of homelessness and end homelessness for people in San Francisco. Services including outreach, homelessness prevention, emergency shelter, drop‐in centers, transitional housing, supportive housing, short‐term rental subsidies, and support services to help people exit homelessness. For more information about the department, please visit our website at https://hsh.sfgov.org.

What We Do

San Francisco is a pioneer in homeless services and a leader in providing supportive housing as a permanent exit from homelessness. The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH), founded in 2016, is a national leader in the movement to end homelessness by developing a coordinated, equity-driven, client-focused system of compassionate services while piloting innovative models, and implementing best practice solutions with measurable results. HSH’s Homelessness Response System (HRS) funds and administers a system of care that shelters, houses, and serves approximately 14,000 people daily. Major programs include: street outreach and service connection through the Homeless Outreach Team (SFHOT); 3,000-bed shelter system for adults and families including shelters for members of the LGBTQ community; rapid rehousing rental subsidies for families, adults, older adults, and transitional aged youth; the Problem Solving and flexible financial assistance programs; and robust supportive housing programs with nearly 10,000 units which provide permanent housing and services to formerly homeless individuals and families.

What You'll Be Doing

The Communications and Legislative Affairs (CLA) division of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing is responsible for managing governmental affairs, communications, and community relations. The team also drives external and internal communications, community engagement, and public information dissemination. Under direction of the Communications Lead, the Public Information Officer will work as a member of the Communications and Legislative Affairs team. 

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Manage day-to-day media inquiries and draft strategic responses.
• Conduct rapid response communications and longer-term strategic communications to provide media and other constituencies with timely and accurate information related to HSH’s projects, programs and people.  
• Build relationships with key local media contacts.
• Develop strategic media outreach lists for targeted communications. 
• Proactively and strategically oversee and maintain HSH website with timely content updates.  
• Develop press releases in collaboration with the Mayor’s office and community partners. 
• Draft compelling media pitches that help change the narrative of homelessness as a hopeless condition. 
• Create content and manage daily social media as well as special campaigns. 
• Develop and manage success stories program. 
• Draft content and oversee development and distribution the quarterly HSH staff newsletter. 
• Draft content and manage the department’s intranet page. 
• Prepare agendas and support the execution of monthly all staff meeting.  
• Develop and improve department-wide collateral, content, and talking points. 
• Manage timely nonprofit partner communications through the My Emma distribution platform. 
• Manage regular updates and distribution of public information cards. 
• Work collaboratively in a team environment; support cross functional activities. 
• Participation in at least one of the HSH internal committees including the Social Committee, the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee etc. 
• Perform other duties as assigned. 

Education:
Possession of a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university.

Experience:
Four (4) years of verifiable full-time professional experience in editorial, newspaper, magazine, radio, television, public relations, social media, digital engagement, or advertising. This experience must be equivalent to job code 1312 Public Information Officer for the City and County of San Francisco and must include at least one (1) year of experience in planning and conducting a public relations, public information, or public education program.

Substitution:

• Additional experience as described above may be substituted for the required degree on a year-for-year basis (up to a maximum of 2 years). Thirty (30) semester units or forty-five (45) quarter units equal one year.
   
• Possession of a Master's degree from an accredited college or university in public relations, journalism, mass communications or a closely related field may substitute for up to one (1) year of the required experience.

Desirable Qualifications:

• Strong writing and presentation skills. 
• Ability to message complex system and program for the general public.  
• Established media connections with local and national reporters. 
• Ability to positively engage community through social media. 
• Persuasive internal written communications skills. 
• Confidence and comfort representing the department with media. 
• Understanding and strong use of data resources. 
• Self-motivated performer. 
• Familiarity with Canva and experience in video production is highly desirable. 
• Proven self-starter who can work collaboratively in a team environment. 
• Exceptional organizational and time-management skills to thrive in a fast-paced high-demand environment. 
• Understanding of the issue of homelessness and the Homelessness Response System.  

Verification:
Applicants may be required to submit verification of qualifying education and experience at any point during the recruitment and selection process. If education verification is required, information on how to verify education requirements, including verifying foreign education credits or degree equivalency, can be found at https://sfdhr.org/how-verify-education-requirements.

Note: Falsifying one’s education, training, or work experience or attempted deception on the application may result in disqualification for this and future job opportunities with the City and County of San Francisco.

All work experience, education, training and other information substantiating how you meet the minimum qualifications must be included on your application by the filing deadline. Information submitted after the filing deadline will not be considered in determining whether you meet the minimum qualifications.

Resumes will not be accepted in lieu of a completed City and County of San Francisco application.

Applications completed improperly may be cause for ineligibility, disqualification or may lead to lower scores.

Selection Procedure:
Applications will be screened for relevant qualifying experience. Additional screening mechanisms may be implemented in order to determine candidates’ qualifications. Only those applicants who most closely meet the needs of the Department will be invited to participate in the selection process. Applicants meeting the minimum qualifications are not guaranteed advancement in the selection process.

What else should I know?

• Information About the Hiring Process
• Conviction History
• Employee Benefits Overview
• Equal Employment Opportunity
• Disaster Service Worker
• ADA Accommodation
• Right to Work
• Copies of Application Documents
• Diversity Statement

How to Apply:
Applications for City and County of San Francisco jobs are only accepted through an online process.

Visit https://careers.smartrecruiters.com/CityAndCountyOfSanFrancisco1/ and begin the application process.

• Select the “I’m Interested” button and follow the instructions on the screen

Applicants may be contacted by email about this recruitment and, therefore, it is their responsibility to ensure that their registered email address is accurate and kept up-to-date. Also, applicants must ensure that email from CCSF is not blocked on their computer by a spam filter. To prevent blocking, applicants should set up their email to accept CCSF mail from the following addresses (@sfgov.org, @sfdpw.org, @sfport.com, @flysfo.com, @sfwater.org, @sfdph.org, @asianart.org, @sfmta.com, @sfpl.org, @dcyf.org, @first5sf.org, @famsf.org, @ccsf.edu, @smartalerts.info, and @smartrecruiters.com).

Applicants will receive a confirmation email that their online application has been received in response to every announcement for which they file. Applicants should retain this confirmation email for their records. Failure to receive this email means that the online application was not submitted or received.

Analyst Information: If you have any questions regarding this recruitment or application process, please contact the analyst Radha Mehta at [email protected].

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.