Working as a homeless shelter volunteer may be the first step in making a career in community work.
As a homeless shelter volunteer, your job will be to assist people without homes to find housing or look for a place in a shelter and ensure that they settle in properly.
The work is by no means easy, but it is quite fulfilling if public service is on your mind.
While working as a homeless shelter volunteer, you will be performing some or all of the duties listed below:
Homeless Shelter Volunteer Duties and Responsibilities
• Interview clients to determine their eligibility for state home provision, and note down all important points for further reference.
• Create accurate records of all assigned clients, and ensure that they are updated in a timely manner.
• Assist clients in understanding their rights to a home under state law and provide them with referrals.
• Provide support to clients in transitioning into their new homes, or shelter facilities, ensuring their comfort and wellbeing.
• Enforce shelter policies aimed at ensuring that clients remain safe and comfortable throughout their stay.
• Verify each client’s homeless status, before determining ways of housing them in facilities.
• Create and maintain documents related to clients, such as intake forms, and additional papers of verification.
• Oversee the settling of clients within a shelter environment, and ensure that any issues or problems that may arise, are given resolution priority.
• Ensure the safety of all clients by making sure that they understand safety policies and procedures, and follow them appropriately.
• Provide emergency assistance in cases of problems associated with on-facility injuries or accidents.
Homeless Shelter Volunteer Qualifications
A high school diploma or a GED equivalent is usually sufficient to work as a homeless shelter volunteer.
Exposure to work in a similar capacity, even if it is in a previous volunteer position, will go a long way in making you a good contender to be considered for this position.
But prior knowledge of this work is not all that you have to possess.
A good head on your shoulders is important – working with the homeless can be quite a nerve-wracking job, and you have to make sure that you come out on top every time.
Patience, resilience, and organization of the mind are important if this is the work that you want to do.
Knowledge of assessing clients to determine their statutory rights, and the ability to plan and deliver workshops are two more areas where your abilities need to be exceptionally profound.