Career Opportunity

Chief Deputy Director - Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (0954)

Recruitment: RTF0133404-01147855

Published: May 18, 2023

Apply using SmartRecruiters, the City and County of San Francisco's application portal.

About:

Application Opening: March 28, 2023
Application Deadline: Continuous until filled
Recruitment ID: 133405, RTF0133404-01147855

Interested applicants are encouraged to apply immediately as this recruitment will remain open until filled.

Announcement amended on 5/18/2023 to reflect a change in the Minimum Qualifications (existing applicants do not need to reapply).  

Appointment Type
Permanent-Exempt (PEX). This position is excluded by the Charter from the competitive civil service examination process and shall serve at the discretion of the appointing officer.

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. The Department has an annual budget of approximately $670 million and a staff of approximately 260 employees. For more information on the department, please visit our 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 oversees the City and County of San Francisco's Homelessness Response System (HRS) and implements a system of care that shelters, houses, and serves approximately 14,000 people daily. Major programs include: street outreach paired with shelter, housing, and service connection; a 3,000-bed shelter system for adults and families that includes a mix of congregate and non-congregate shelter settings; scattered site rapid rehousing and permanent rental subsidies for families, adults, and transitional aged youth; Problem Solving and flexible financial assistance programs; over 10,000 units of permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless households, and Housing Ladder programs for households ready to move on from permanent supportive housing.

Role description

The Chief Deputy Director serves as the chief operating officer of the Department and stands in for the Executive Director when required. The individual in this role works to address operational issues, troubleshoot challenges, manage relationships, and mediate complaints from staff, clients, service providers and partners before they are brought to the Executive Director.  The Chief Deputy anticipates and averts problems before they occur. The role requires a balance of high-level strategic thinking capability and hands-on organizational and project management skills. The ideal candidate for this role will be able to work in a highly independent fashion, possess strong communication skills, be politically astute, and have extensive public sector management experience.

The Chief Deputy Director will use strong leadership and problem-solving skills to assist with the daily operation of the Department and provide clear directions to subordinate directors, managers, and staff.  The individual who fills this role must be able to: manage in a fast-paced, dynamic, and politically visible work environment, to appropriately triage a high volume of demands on their time, and be able to sustain forward momentum on multiple competing priorities at the same time. The Chief Deputy Director role is distinguished from that of the other Deputy Directors in that their focus extends beyond a single operational area to consider the needs of the whole organization.

Specific duties of the Chief Deputy Director include but are not limited to the following:

• Supports the Executive Director in seeding shared vision throughout the organization, managing change, and navigating uncertainty or risk.
• Acts as a sounding board for the Executive Director and assists in vetting ideas or gathering feedback from internal and external stakeholders to inform the Director’s decision-making.
• Guides development of core organizational vision and strategy in concert with the Director and senior leadership team and helps to ensure that the vision is supported by organizational priorities, policies, and procedures.
• Represents the Executive Director and the Department in settings that require diplomacy, political sensitivity, and relationship-building with external partners. Acts on behalf of the Director in her absence.
• Regularly interfaces with key external stakeholders including the Mayor’s Office, Board of Supervisors, City leadership, other City departments, advocates, and community-based service delivery providers.
• Participates in all aspects of Department leadership and management, including establishment of vision and priorities, policy development, and resource allocation.
• Directly supervises the Deputy Director of Programs, the Deputy Director of Administration and Finance, and the Deputy Director of Planning, Performance and Strategy.
• Supports Deputy Directors in priority-setting, decision-making and problem-solving. Escalates to the Executive Director and City leadership as needed when issues cannot be resolved at a lower level.
• Follows up on duties delegated by the Executive Director to other members of the executive leadership team.
• Embraces and embodies the Department’s racial equity goals and provides leadership to help advance the achievement of those goals within the organization and within the larger homelessness delivery system.
• Identifies and intervenes to address concerns related to organizational productivity, poor information flow within the department, and inefficient or slow decision-making.
• Acts as an integrator facilitating information-sharing and ensuring coordination across the Department’s internal silos.
• Plans the agenda for and facilitates meetings with internal and external stakeholders.
• Facilitates communication up and down within the Department, always has an open door, and serves as a bridge between the executive leadership team and staff.
• Reviews, designs, and executes improvements to the organizational structure. Identifies operational knowledge and skills gaps and helps to address them through creation of new positions, recruitment, and internal reorganization.
• Guides the development of policies and procedures and works to improve current business processes to ensure organizational efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity.
• Other duties as assigned by the Executive Director.

How to qualify

Minimum Qualifications:
Education: A Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university.

Experience: Four (4) years of managerial experience in the administration of social services, housing programs, and/or homeless services. All of the qualifying experience must include supervisory experience.

Substitution: Additional experience as described above may be substituted for the required degree on a year-for-year basis up to a maximum of two (2) years. One (1) year is equivalent to thirty (30) semester units / forty-five (45) quarter units.

Note: One year of full-time employment is equivalent to 2000 hours (2000 hours of qualifying work experience is based on a 40-hour work week). Any overtime hours exceeding forty (40) hours per week are not included in the calculation to determine full-time employment.

Desirable Qualifications:

• Master’s Degree in in social work, public administration, public health, or other related field.
• Prior public sector management experience including familiarity with the public budgeting process, the public contracting process, and working in a unionized, civil service workplace.
• Prior experience working within or in partnership with the City & County of San Francisco.
• Prior work experience or subject matter expertise in homelessness policy and/or service delivery or in related fields including but not limited to affordable housing, permanent supportive housing, anti-poverty programs, and/or social services programming.
• Ability to articulate how homelessness is a racial equity issue and to engage in workplace discussions about racial equity.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; experienced with public speaking and making public presentations; strong group facilitation skills.
• Organized, self-directed, detail-oriented, and able to effectively manage competing priorities to external timelines.
• Able to maintain a professional demeanor under pressure; ability to navigate relationships with a diverse group of stakeholders with diplomacy and emotional intelligence..

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.

Exam Analyst Information: If you have any questions regarding this recruitment or application process, please contact the exam analyst Kacie Kesler at kacie.kesler@sfgov.org. 

CONDITION OF EMPLOYMENT:  All City and County of San Francisco employees are required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of employment. Someone is fully vaccinated when 14 days have passed since they received the final dose of a two-shot vaccine or a dose of a one-shot vaccine. Any new hire must present proof of full vaccination status to be appointed. Any new hire who will be routinely assigned or occasionally enter High-Risk Settings, must provide proof of having received a COVID-19 booster vaccine by March 1, 2022, or once eligible.

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.