Housing Policy Director (EMS 4)

State of Washington•Thurston County - Multiple Locations, WA

6d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Department of Commerce is seeking a Housing Policy Director (EMS 4), a senior leader reporting to the Housing Division Assistant Director. This role serves on the Housing Division leadership team and leads the policy operations of the division, as well as collaborative policy work across the Agency. The Director is the statewide expert on housing and homelessness policy, representing the agency and its Director in strategic meetings and high-level policy discussions with the Governor and his staff. This position involves negotiating and partnering with other state agencies and local governments to drive innovative policies and effective programs to address the homelessness crisis. The Director makes decisions and manages the internal development of policies related to housing affordability and homelessness, including changes to existing policies and resources, and the development of new state and federal policies and funding. The role supports the Assistant Director and Housing Division leadership team in strategic leadership, partners with the agency Government Affairs and Policy Director, and represents the agency at strategic meetings with the Governor's office regarding housing initiatives. An example of a significant initiative is the Governor's program to transition people experiencing homelessness from rights-of-way to permanent housing, funded by the 2022 Legislature with a budget of $144 million. The position is located in Olympia or Seattle, WA, with hybrid work flexibility.

Requirements

10+ years of relevant experience, with a minimum of 5 years of demonstrated success in senior-level leadership roles with responsibility for managing complex programs, large multidisciplinary teams, and significant operating and/or capital budgets.
Extensive executive management level experience including management of other management level positions.
Experience leading a policy development process, including identifying necessary stakeholders, developing and implementing a facilitated process to work with stakeholders to review policy proposals, developing strategic plans, and quantifying the impact of strategic plans action on progress toward plan goals.
Experience with legislative processes, including successful promotion of legislation and budget request, and operating in a political environment.
Must have experience building and maintaining relationships with constituent groups, such as city and county officials, nonprofit service providers, other state agencies and legislators.
Experience working with the media to promote priorities and transparency, including promoting successes, using the media to help advocate for policy and budget changes that support strategic initiatives, and managing media relations in crisis.
Knowledge of contemporary management techniques, ability to provide leadership and direction to managers and staff.
Must have experience managing, developing and mentoring a large, complex budget and excellent written, oral and public speaking skills.
Experience in policy development and execution; the ability to articulate ill-defined problems and orchestrate a team to implement plans to address and resolve the same; and the ability to work with a wide array of stakeholders including the Governor's office, the legislature, Department of Commerce leadership, other agencies, companies, and associations.

Nice To Haves

Extensive experience communicating with the public in writing and in oral presentations
Graduate degree or certifications in applicable fields
Experience creating accountability metrics utilizing data sets
Demonstrated experience and commitment to identifying and dismantling systemic barriers, expanding access and opportunity, and ensuring that programs are shaped by the people and communities served
Extensive familiarity with public employment and state or local government

Responsibilities

Lead responsibility for communicating with Governor’s Office, legislators, stakeholders, advocates, and media regarding Commerce housing policies and programs.
Lead responsibility for developing and pursuing adoption of housing-related agency request legislation and budget proposals that support the Governor’s priorities, including affordable housing and homelessness strategic plans.
Responsible for leading and implementing the development of coordinated and complementary policies for all programs in the Housing Division, including determining decision packets, fund awards, allowable use of funds, and eligibility/prioritization for housing and related services.
Responsible for working closely with the Local Government Division to develop and implement land use and infrastructure policies that improve housing affordability and enable siting of necessary affordable and special needs housing.
Responsible for working with other state agencies and local governments to clearly determine responsibility for funding and managing the necessary components of an effective response to homelessness, including temporary and permanent housing, behavioral health and other supportive services, and outreach and engagement.
Responsible for the Statewide Interagency Council on Homelessness and Washington Statewide Advisory Council on Homelessness (ICH, SACH) that include collaboration with stakeholders to inform policies to end homelessness.
As the statewide expert on housing and homelessness policy, responsible for leading the development and implementation of processes to forecast the impact of potential housing program policy and resource changes on housing affordability and homelessness, and estimating the impact of potential land use regulation changes on housing affordability.
Responsible for leading the updates of the state affordable housing and homeless housing strategic plans that quantify how proposed policy and resource changes will improve housing affordability and reduce homelessness using strategies that align with the values and priorities of various stakeholders.
Responsible for developing multi-factor models of affordable housing and homelessness unmet needs and drivers, and deploying the models to forecast future needs and the impacts of proposed policy changes.
Direct responsibility for partnering with other state agencies and local governments and managing the implementation of nationally unprecedented efforts to effectively transition people from public rights-of-way to housing, including managing the related staff and developing the policy approach.
Advise the Housing Division Assistant Director and the agency Director in the development and implementation of strategic priorities, division-wide and agency-wide initiatives, and coordination of standards and processes of program implementation and resource allocation across division programs.
Embrace the agency mission of strengthening communities and the ongoing cultivation of a healthy agency culture embodied by the values of trust, collaboration, and creativity. Lead with integrity and transparency and with a demonstrated commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion internally and in the delivery of agency services and programs.
Coordinate with and promote our mission of strengthening communities with other key agencies and stakeholders.
Directly supervise: Legislative Lead, State Homelessness in Rights-of-Way Manager, and Administrative Support. Secondary supervision of two Rights-of-Way Regional Leads.
Serve as sponsor and leader of Housing Division process improvements to implement policy development procedures that ensure every person in the Housing Division can meaningfully participate in policy and program development, leveraging the diversity of experiences of values while building understanding of buy-in regarding policies and programs.
Lead Housing Division process improvements to ensure every program and policy development process includes people with lived experience of housing instability or homelessness, and people from historically marginalized communities.
Implement policy development procedures that ensure that every person in the Housing Division can meaningfully participate in policy and program development, leveraging the diversity of experiences of values while building understanding and buy-in regarding policies and programs.