Pros
You will have excellent co-workers, and a sense of family at some sites. If you stay long enough, you will make friendships to last a lifetime.
Cons
No employer-contributed retirement plan. You have to use a lot of your vacation time during mandatory break from Christmas to New Years. The housing program has extremely poor supervisors in place (some have been there way too long!) due to lack of oversight by upper management. The housing program is unorganized and gives inconsistent direction to its staff. The housing supervisors do not oversee the work of case managers to ensure contract compliance; instead they cover up mistakes, usually by firing staff to deflect attention away from their own bumbling. The physical space at Dancing Tree is not conducive to quality work for housing and development staff. It is noisy, there is poor lighting, and the public is allowed to mill around and stay all day right next to cubicles where people are trying to work. The public includes people that are mentally disturbed, loud, unwashed, drunk or on drugs and unwilling to supervise their children. Thefts have occurred, but there has been no attempt to keep better track of the people using the facility--bathroom, phone or computers. There is no confidential space where clients can talk freely. The database system is extremely inadequate for case managers who need to access a large volume of information on a daily basis. There is too much reliance on paper files, and an unwillingness on the part of management to advocate for staff's needs. There is little follow-through on the part of management to correct these and other concerns. There is much more that is wrong at Impact NW; these are just a few examples.