Benefits Advocate

The Urban Justice Center’s Safety Net Project (SNP) provides direct legal and social services in the areas of public benefits access, homelessness, and tenant rights. SNP also engages in policy advocacy and community organizing led by impacted community members. SNP is one of NYC’s Right to Counsel providers representing tenants facing eviction and is also active in various grassroots organizing campaigns fighting for systemic change.

SNP seeks applicants for a Benefits Advocate position. SNP’s Benefits Advocates work directly with households facing issues with their Public Assistance (PA), SNAP, or housing subsidies through advocacy with City agencies and representation at administrative fair hearings. The Benefits Advocate would join SNP’s Benefits and Homeless Advocacy Unit, which provides legal and social services to New Yorkers facing issues accessing public benefits and New Yorkers who are homeless and does organizing and policy work on these issues.

Primary Responsibilities

• Engage in zealous advocacy with city agencies to secure benefits for clients;
• Interview individual clients to assess their needs related to public benefits and homelessness issues;
• Staff legal clinics throughout NYC food pantries and soup kitchens or staff a warmline during remote work;
• Represent clients in administrative fair hearings;
• Help clients understand the public benefits system and empower them to advocate for themselves within it;
• From time to time, advocating for clients within the NYC shelter system;
• The opportunity to participate in public benefits coalitions, working groups, or campaigns.

Qualifications

• Aptitude for tenacious, client-centered advocacy;
• Ability to quickly learn the regulations and processes of New York City’s public benefits and housing subsidy systems;
• Strong written and verbal skills;
• Strong anti-oppression and social justice analysis and lens, including a deep commitment to racial justice and housing justice work;
• Ability to respond sensitively to the urgent needs of clients;
• Strong organizational and time-management skills, including flexibility and the ability to work in a fast-paced environment handling a docket of benefits cases;
• Conversational Spanish is strongly preferred.

The annual salary for this position is between $62,000.00 and $75,109.73, depending on experience, and an excellent benefits package is available, with generous vacation, personal, and sick time, along with industry-leading medical and dental coverage. This is a bargaining unit position represented for collective bargaining purposes by the Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys (ALAA) UAW Local 2325. Subject to work needs, the Safety Net Project also offers flexible hours and hybrid work options.

The Safety Net Project is an equal opportunity employer. SNP encourages applications from people with diverse backgrounds, including women, people of color, immigrants, domestic violence survivors, people with disabilities, LGBTQI+ people, people from low-income backgrounds, and people with personal experience with the criminal justice system. We strongly encourage applications from people with lived experiences in the communities we serve, of homelessness or housing instability, or of the benefits system.

Conversational Spanish is strongly preferred.