Temporary Housing Retention Specialist - UCRT
Company: DESC
Role summary
Temporary Housing Retention Specialist - UCRT is a full-time role at DESC in Seattle, Washington, United States (on-site). Posted 2026-10-16. Salary: USD 39–43 per hour. Experience level: 0-2. No degree required.
- Job title
- Temporary Housing Retention Specialist - UCRT
- Company
- DESC
- Location
- Seattle, Washington, United States
- Work arrangement
- on-site
- Employment type
- full-time
- Category
- Healthcare Support
- Salary
- USD 39–43 per hour
- Experience level
- 0-2
- Degree required
- No
- Date posted
- 2026-10-16
This is a great temporary opportunity to help people secure stable housing, and you don't even need a degree! The pay is excellent, and it comes with fantastic benefits like fully covered medical insurance, generous paid time off, and even an ORCA card subsidy. It's a full-time, day shift role with weekends off.
Job description
Description
Days Off: Saturday, Sunday
Shift: Day (8:30am - 5:00pm)
Insurance Benefits: Dental, Life, Long-term Disability, Medical (no premiums/payroll deductions for employee coverage)
Other Benefits: Employee Assistance Program (EAP), Flexible Spending Account (FSA), ORCA card subsidy, Paid Time Off (34 days per year), Retirement Plan
This is a temporary position that is expected to last 12 months. We will be hiring for 2 Housing Retention Specialists.
About DESC:
Recognized nationally as an innovator and leader in developing solutions to homelessness, DESC is a social services organization, supportive housing operator, and licensed behavioral health treatment provider focused on meeting the needs of people experiencing long-term homelessness and living with complex behavioral health and other medical conditions. Approximately 3,000 people are actively receiving services from DESC at any given point in time. Our vision is a community where all people are shown compassion, treated with dignity, and everyone has a safe, stable, and affordable place to call home.
DESC operates five shelter/emergency housing programs, 19 permanent supportive housing facilities with over 1,750 units, several hundred additional scattered site apartments, and a range of behavioral health services including outpatient mental health and substance use disorder treatment, residential crisis stabilization, street outreach, mobile crisis response, and treatment for opioid use disorder.
JOB OVERVIEW:
Are you a creative problem-solver who thrives on direct engagement, active teamwork, and seeing tangible, long-term results? Do you want to step away from the burden of traditional, high-caseload paperwork and focus on deep, impactful, one-on-one breakthrough work?
The Housing Retention Specialist (HRS) is an innovative, high-impact role operating within DESC’s specialized Unit Condition Response Team (UCRT). This temporary, 12-month position serves as a zone-deployed team designed to step in alongside site-based staff Clinical Support Specialist and Housing Stabilization Specialist during a building’s most critical housing stability milestones. Rather than managing a caseload of individuals, the HRS provides intensive, short-term, side-by-side behavioral coaching to help residents overcome complex tenancy barriers, such as severe mental health/substance use issues, hoarding behaviors, benefits navigation and imminent eviction risks.
Working as part of a dynamic, co-deployment team, the HRS provides added support to housing staff and tenants by improving apartment conditions, strengthening housing retention, increasing tenant engagement, enhancing inspection readiness, building independent living skills, and assisting residents with benefit and entitlement navigation that supports long-term housing stability. This position is ideal for an independent, resilient professional looking to sharpen their clinical intervention skills, work collaboratively in a highly supportive environment, and directly prevent possible housing loss in real-time.
MAJOR DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:
Serve as a mobile, cross-site specialist within an integrated care team, partnering directly with onsite HSS and CSS staff to address high-acuity housing challenges through collaborative, multi-person interventions.
Co-deploy into high-acuity residential units alongside onsite staff to provide a necessary second person for safety, pacing, and intensive unit remediation support for severe clutter, hoarding, biohazard concerns, or other housing retention crises.
Deliver focused, short-term, in-unit independent living skills coaching, partnering directly with residents to model organization, routine tracking, safe household practices, and clutter-mitigation techniques that preserve housing stability and lease compliance.
Utilize trauma-informed, harm-reduction, and de-escalation approaches to support tenants experiencing extreme clutter, hoarding behaviors, or other barriers to housing retention while reducing immediate fire, life, and safety risks.
In close collaboration with the resident and their site-based HSS/CSS team, assist in implementing goals established in the tenant's Integrated Service Plan (ISP) and, when applicable, their Housing Retention and Stability Plan.
Provide intensive support with public benefits acquisition, retention, and troubleshooting, including Medicaid enrollment and renewal, ABD applications and recertifications, SSI/SSDI application support, appeals, document gathering, and coordination with benefit specialists and community partners. Assist tenants in addressing benefit interruptions, accessing income supports, and navigating service systems that are critical to maintaining housing stability.
Support tenants with budgeting, income stabilization planning, document management, and housing transition planning to strengthen long-term housing retention and self-sufficiency.
Identify barriers to income and healthcare access and provide hands-on assistance with obtaining and maintaining benefits, healthcare coverage, and other entitlement programs that support successful tenancy.
Design and facilitate voluntary activities, skill-building workshops, tenant meetings, and neighborhood outings that reduce isolation, promote community engagement, and reinforce independent living skills in partnership with onsite staff.
Complete timely documentation of client interactions, assessments, and interventions in accordance with agency standards.
Participate in UCRT staff meetings, PSH site care coordination meetings, and agency trainings.
Other duties as assigned.
Requirements
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:
Ability to meet Washington Department of Health requirements for registration as a Registered Agency Affiliated Counselor (AAC) or any other superseding credential
Relevant bachelor’s degree in social work, psychology, or related behavioral science; OR a combination of 1 year* of relevant paid work
Apply for Temporary Housing Retention Specialist - UCRT at DESC