Housing Assistant

Summary

The Housing Assistant is assigned to the Housing and Urban Development-VA Supportive Housing Program (HUD/VASH) within the Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCV) at the VA Medical Center. The position has primary responsibility for coordination of housing resources and outreach to increase and maintain appropriate housing options for homeless Veterans in the program.

Duties

• ***THIS IS NOT A VIRTUAL POSITION, YOU MUST LIVE WITHIN OR BE WILLING TO RELOCATE WITHIN A COMMUTABLE DISTANCE OF THE DUTY LOCATION*** Major duties and responsibilities include: Identifying local landlords and realtors to find potential housing units for Veterans. Knowledge of community resources and entitlement programs. Maintaining a database of landlord and property management companies that accept Housing Choice Voucher subsides. Documenting interventions in a timely manner. Working effectively within a multi-disciplinary team providing valuable contributions to Veterans treatment plan development and recovery goals. Acting as a liaison between all parties including the VA, Public Housing Authority, landlord and Veterans to address housing needs. Assisting Veterans with housing search process, including helping Veterans to fill out applications. Assisting Veterans with identifying potential or existing problems in apartments and assisting Veterans with requesting repairs. Providing expert advice on procurement issues. Performing other duties as assigned. Work Schedule: Monday-Friday, 8:00am to 4:30pm Recruitment & Relocation Incentives: Not authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not approved

Qualifications

IN ORDER TO QUALIFY FOR THIS POSITION AT THE GS-5 LEVEL YOU MUST MEET THE FOLLOWING REQUIREMENTS: SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: You must possess one (1) year of specialized experience equivalent to the next lower grade level (GS-4) in Federal service that has equipped you with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the duties of the position, and that is typically in or related to the work of the position to be filled. Specialized experience includes developing housing resources for homeless clients; providing homeless outreach services; developing relationships with other support organizations such as property management groups and landlords. (THIS EXPERIENCE MUST BE SUPPORTED BY YOUR RESUME TO BE CREDITABLE.) ~OR~ SUBSTITUTION OF EDUCATION FOR EXPERIENCE: You must have successfully completed 4 years of education above the high school level. This education must have been obtained in an accredited business, secretarial or technical school, junior college, college or university. One year of full-time academic study is defined as 30 semester hours, 45 quarter hours, or the equivalent in a college or university, or at least 20 hours of classroom instruction per week for approximately 36 weeks in a business, secretarial, or technical school. One full year of graduate education is considered to be 18 semester hours. (COPY OF TRANSCRIPTS ARE REQUIRED AT TIME OF APPLICATION) ~OR~ COMBINATION OF EXPERIENCE AND EDUCATION: You must possess equivalent combinations of successfully completed post-high school education and specialized experience to meet total qualification requirements at the GS-5 level. (THIS EXPERIENCE MUST BE SUPPORTED BY YOUR RESUME TO BE CREDITABLE AND COPY OF TRANSCRIPTS ARE REQUIRED AT TIME OF APPLICATION) ~AND~ DRIVER'S LICENSE REQUIREMENT: This position requires a current, valid state driver's license. Do not upload a copy of your license at this time. If an interview is requested, you may be required to provide a copy of your current, valid, and unrestricted state driver's license. For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.

Requirements

You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job To be considered for this position, you must complete all required steps in the process. In addition to the application and questionnaire, this position requires an online assessment. The online assessment measures critical general competencies required to perform the job. Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959 Physical Requirements: The work is primarily sedentary with long periods of sitting at a desk, working with computers daily. Some work may require walking in offices and similar areas for meetings. Work may also require walking and standing in conjunction with travel to and attendance at meetings and conferences away from the worksite. The work does not require any special physical effort. Subject to background/security investigation Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process. Acceptable form(s) of identification will be required to complete pre-employment requirements (https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents). Effective May 7, 2025, driver's licenses or state-issued identification cards that are not REAL ID compliant cannot be utilized as an acceptable form of identification for employment. Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP) - See "Required Documents" below for details. As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you will be required to serve a 1-year probationary period during which we will evaluate your fitness and whether your continued employment advances the public interest. In determining if your employment advances the public interest, we may consider: your performance and conduct; the needs and interests of the agency; whether your continued employment would advance organizational goals of the agency or the Government; and whether your continued employment would advance the efficiency of the Federal service. Upon completion of your probationary, your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest.

Education

IMPORTANT: A transcript must be submitted with your application if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on education. NOTE: Only education or degrees recognized by the U.S. Department of Education from accredited colleges, universities, schools, or institutions may be used to qualify for Federal employment. You can verify your education here: http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/. If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education. For further information, visit: https://sites.ed.gov/international/recognition-of-foreign-qualifications/.

How to apply

Please read the entire announcement and all the instructions before you begin an application. To apply for this position, you must complete the initial online application, to include the initial online assessment and submission of the required documentation specified in the Required Documents section above. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on the closing date of the announcement to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire, click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/13055580. The application process is as follows: To begin, click Apply Online to create a USA JOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USA JOBS resume and/or other supporting documents. Answer the questions presented in the application and attach all necessary supporting documentation. Click the Submit Application button prior to 11:59 PM (ET) on the announcement closing date, 09/11/2026. After submitting the online application, you will be notified whether or not you are required to take additional online assessments through the USA Hire Competency Based Assessment system. This message will be delivered to you via email notification. The email may be routed to your "Spam" or "Junk" folder. IMPORTANT: If you are asked to take the USA Hire Competency Based Assessments, you will be presented with a unique URL to access the USA Hire system. Access to USA Hire is granted through your USAJOBS login credentials. Be sure to review all instructions prior to beginning your USA Hire Assessments. Click here for Computer System Requirements. Set aside at least 3 hours to take the USA Hire assessments; however, most applicants complete the assessments in less time. If you need to stop the assessments and continue at a later time, you can re-use the URL sent to you via email and also found in your USAJOBS account under the "Track my application" link for the corresponding application. Your responses to the USA Hire Assessments will be reused for one year (in most cases) from the date you complete an assessment. If future applications you submit require completion of the same assessments, your responses will be automatically reused. Visit the USA Hire Applicant Resource Center for practice assessments and assessment preparation resources at https://support-usahire.opm.gov/hc/en-us. To view the announcement status or your application status: https://help.usajobs.gov/how-to. Your application status page is where you can view your application status, USA Hire assessment completion status, and review your notifications sent by the hiring agency regarding your application. Beginning September 27, 2025, Federal agencies will only accept resumes up to two pages in length to comply with the Merit Hiring Plan. Resumes longer than two pages will result in ineligibility for further consideration for the position. USAJOBS will not allow you to upload or build resumes longer than two pages, and you will need to update the resumes in your profile before applying for a job. Resumes should include information relevant to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of the position to which you are applying. VA is unable to make assumptions about qualifications if not clearly listed. Resumes must be legible so they can be reviewed for eligibility, minimum qualifications and other position requirements listed in the job announcement. Your resume must be 5MB or less. We recommend saving and uploading your resume as a PDF to maintain formatting and number of pages. We also accept GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, TXT, PDF, ODT or Word (DOC or DOCX). We do not accept PDF portfolio files. We recommend using a sans-serif font size like Lato, if available. Other widely available options are Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open San Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noro Sans. Make your page margins 0.5 inches. Consider using 14-point size font for titles and 10-point for the main text in your resume. The resume builder can help you create a resume using these recommendations and uses the information in your USAJOBS profile to help you get started. Helpful Hints for Creating a Two-Page Resume: Prioritize most relevant and recent experience Use concise, results focused language Align language from the job announcement Focus on demonstrating skills and competencies Remove outdated or unrelated experience Use the USAJOBS resume builder Additional guidance on this new requirement and resume building tools can be found at: https://help.usajobs.gov/faq/application/documents/resume/page-limit.