Jocelyne Clark joined the CATCH and Alliance team in February 2020 as the Resident Services Coordinator for the Central Region, based in Concord. This was right before the COVID-19 pandemic struck so her experience has been a unique one!
Prior to coming to Alliance, Jocelyne worked at an assisted living facility for 9 years. Her last few years there were spent as the administrator where she became familiar with federal and state healthcare laws and regulations. She worked with residents, their family/public guardians, and area agencies to coordinate their care plans and monitor them for compliance.
This experience was perfect as she transitioned into her role as our Resident Services Coordinator. Her responsibilities now include assisting residents with tools to live safely and successfully in their own homes. She helps with reasonable accommodation requests, finding resources to help with rent or utilities, and connecting with local resources to provide educational in-services, when it’s safe to do so. With the pandemic she didn’t get much time to meet residents or host in-person events which made it difficult to help some residents as much as she might have been able to. To compensate for the timing, she has made phone calls, e-mails, and delivered newsletters to our residents to check in, providing her contact information and simply letting them know she was there if they needed anything. Over the months of the pandemic, she has worked really closely with the property manager because between the two of them, they were able to figure out who might need some help with resources.
As of Monday March 22, Jocelyne has officially accepted the position of Occupancy Specialist along with the Resident Services Coordinator (RSC) position.
“Joining the occupancy team has been a huge benefit,” says Jocelyne, “not only to my personal educational growth but to my RSC position, because I am meeting more residents, seeing the demand for rents go out, and hearing talk of any upcoming evictions and challenges and I can reach out and offer resources.”
One project Jocelyne was able to kick-off was the food pantry that serves Friedman Court and Friedman Court II. We got some really great food donations October through January and she was able to open the food pantry once a month. She is hoping to open it again if we can keep getting donations. We have also had a church donate bread which she delivers once a week to our senior property and one of our multifamily properties.
“The best part of my job is just helping people!” says Jocelyne. “My passion has always been helping people. The first person I offered an apartment to cried, happy tears of course; they had a rough past and were just trying to get in a stable home that fit the family size appropriately. It was a great feeling and as the process went on I not only got to assist as a part of occupancy but as the RSC as well with a reasonable accommodation they needed to have approved prior to moving in.”
Thank you for sharing your experiences and everything you do to support our residents, Jocelyne!