The Boston Public Health Commission’s Homeless Services Bureau (HSB) provides emergency shelter, job training, behavioral health support, and housing services to unhoused individuals in Boston. We serve close to 5,000 individuals every year, and are one of the largest providers of emergency shelter in New England. We aim to make homelessness in Boston rare, brief, and one time. We do that by problem-solving with new guests at the front door to try to prevent anyone from entering homelessness to begin with. For individuals who do become homeless and use our shelters, we help them quickly move out of homelessness and find a safe place to call home. Once housed, we provide in-home supports to ensure someone does not return to homelessness. We use a Housing First and racial justice framework, which is built on the foundation that housing is a social determinant of health, a basic need that everyone deserves, and does not require sobriety. We believe that everyone, with the right support, can succeed in housing. We foster evidence-based approaches such as trauma-informed care, harm reduction, and motivational interviewing in the delivery of our services, and ensure services are low-threshold and accessible to our guests.
Our workforce development team helps clients in a supportive environment to build skills to earn income and secure competitive employment. Through our Serving Ourselves program (SOS), we hire shelter guests as Client Workers who receive six months of paid on the job training in custodial or food services, on the job supervision, employment-focused case management, and classroom training and workshops on resume-building and interviewing. The team also works with external partners to identify community-based resources and opportunities.
The mission of the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) is to work in partnership with communities to protect and promote the health and well-being of all Boston residents, especially those impacted by racism and systemic inequities. The BPHC sets an expectation that all staff and leadership commit, individually and as part of the BPHC team, to hold ourselves accountable to establishing a culture of anti-racism and advance racial equity and justice through each of our bureaus, programs, and offices.
Monday-Friday 10:00am-6:00pm
$973.96 / wk
Public service is a noble calling: to help others, to make our communities stronger, and to uphold the public trust.
As city employees, we see the results of our hard work in our own community— in street and infrastructure improvements, new buildings rising from the ground, safer and more prosperous neighborhoods, and happier, healthier children, families, and senior citizens.
We may all come from different backgrounds, but we are connected through our passion for service.
What we do at work today, and everyday, shapes the Boston of tomorrow.
Join us!
The City of Boston is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment. Therefore, qualified applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category.
