Community Education Outreach Specialist | BASTA

Community Education Outreach Specialist | BASTA
Austin

About BASTA

BASTA (Building and Strengthening Tenant Action) is a project housed in Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA) dedicated to helping Austin renters work alongside their neighbors to improve conditions in their homes and communities. In response to longstanding community frustration over substandard housing and landlord impunity, BASTA engages underrepresented tenants through outreach and education into a housing justice movement that seeks to dismantle the systems that prevent tenants from living in dignified and healthy homes.

BASTA works to build tenant power by supporting organized groups of renters -tenants associations- and by educating the larger renter community about evictions and other tenant issues. Our tenants association work supports tenants organizations at multifamily properties throughout Austin to advance campaigns to win dignity, respect, better living conditions, and community benefits. Our community education work includes interactive presentations, the development of digital and print materials, and connecting individual tenants facing eviction to resource and rights information. BASTA envisions a future where the collective action of Austin renters has brought healthy and affordable housing to all.

Position Description

The Community Education Outreach Specialist will support BASTA’s frontline community education efforts including materials development, adaptation, and organization, as well as workshop co-facilitation and community tabling. The Outreach Specialist will also take the lead on eviction-specific outreach activities, including responding to incoming eviction-related inquiries as a result of our Eviction Notification System and conducting flyering and info drops at “high evictor” and bad actor properties in Travis County to share tenant rights information. They will coordinate with BASTA volunteers to increase organizational capacity to conduct these activities. The Outreach Specialist will be crucial to ensuring that the lived experience of tenants guides BASTA’s work and advocacy strategies. The successful candidate thrives in engaging others, can find laughter and light even in hard situations, sees the importance of meeting people where they’re at, and believes that “knowledge is power.”

Responsibilities:

Community Education:

Identify community education needs, drawing on outreach experience to tenants, in collaboration with the Director of Community Education and Arts Advocacy.

Support the development of accessible community education print, digital, and workshop materials, in collaboration with the Community Education Paralegal and Director of Community Education and Arts Advocacy

Edit, update and translate existing community ed materials, in collaboration with the Community Education Paralegal, to ensure that they are accessible to community members across language, literacy, and educational levels.

Help develop content (including creative skits and props) for, and co-facilitate, tenants rights workshops and presentations at partner organizations and other community institutions alongside team members.

Conduct tabling at community partner locations and highly trafficked areas (such as bus stops, HEB parking lots, etc) in collaboration with the Community Education Paralegal

Maintain an up-to-date and well-organized Know-Your-Rights bank of materials,, in collaboration with the Community Education Paralegal.

Build and maintain relationships with community partners (including updated contact list), serving as the main point of contact and organization for all community education requests and inquiries.

Maintain and expand a community resource guide of available supports, including legal aid, rental assistance, and basic needs resources.

Eviction-Specific Outreach:

Coordinate and send outreach texts to tenants facing eviction with information about their eviction rights and connect them to resources (also known as the Eviction Notification System);

Return eviction-specific tenant calls, texts, emails, and inquiries, as well as referrals from other BASTA staff members providing basic eviction education and connecting tenants with other community resources.

Flyer and conduct targeted eviction-information-packet drops, with volunteer support, at top evicting properties in Travis County to make sure tenants know their eviction rights and are aware of possible defenses.

Maintain and call upon database of active volunteers, recruiting additional volunteers as necessary, to maximize organizational capacity to conduct outreach activities.

Based on data provided by Data Analyst, target outreach efforts to top evicting properties.

Conduct eviction outreach call clinics.

Data Collection & Program Evaluation:

Contemporaneously document all outreach activities to track outcomes and ensure compliance with funding requirements.

Collect feedback surveys and input survey data into systems.

Document and record stories of tenants facing eviction or recently evicted, as well as other tenant stories collected during outreach and community education experiences.

All other duties assigned.

Compensation

Salary $40,840-$54,320, depending on experience. Full medical and dental benefits are provided to employees. Paid vacation, sick days, and holidays.

To Apply: 

Email a resume and a paragraph or two about why you are interested in the position to [email protected] with the subject line “Community Education Outreach Specialist.”

BASTA has a strong commitment to hiring staff that reflect the tenant communities we support. People of color, immigrants, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ people and renters with experience living in low-income housing are encouraged to apply.