Live-In Peer House Manager

Help Build a New Recovery Community From the Start
Fora Health is expanding to include Fora Home, a new transitional recovery housing program. As our Live-In House Manager, you’ll work with the Director of Peer Services and other Fora Health teams to build the house culture from the ground up.
This is a full-time position with 40 hours per week on-site. You’ll work closely with the Director and the wider Fora Health team.

About the live-in role
As a live-in manager, you’ll have your own private studio apartment with a full bathroom, separate from the shared resident spaces. Living on-site means no commute and a real presence in the community you’re helping build. Your apartment also gives you a place to step back, rest, and keep your personal life your own.

Position Summary
The Live-In Peer House Manager is the cultural heart of Fora Health's transitional housing. This is not a landlord or monitor role; the House Manager is a peer leader who uses their lived experience to model stable recovery in a communal setting. By living on-site, the House Manager provides real-time support during throughout the week, and specifically during high-stress evening and weekend hours, ensuring the house remains a safe, peer-driven sanctuary.

The House Manager bridges residential stability and active recovery. Their primary goal is to foster a safe, recovery-oriented community where residents learn the life skills necessary to maintain their recovery in a community setting — while protecting the mutuality and resident autonomy that define authentic peer support. The House Manager is part of the front-line peer workforce — distinct from clinical, medical, or property-management staff — and their day-to-day work is anchored in the residents of the house where they live. The House Manager is supported by the Fora Home Peer Mentor Supervisor to maintain their own wellbeing, with a focus on ensuring that the demands of living and working in the same space as residents do not erode the pee relationship or personal self-care practices.

Essential Job Duties
Community and Culture Setting

- Role model and demonstrate the skills to calmly handle conflict, foster a house in which every resident feels welcomed and included, and demonstrate what recovery in a communal house looks like

- Facilitate consistent house meetings on a minimum of a weekly basis— structured space for residents to raise concerns, plan communal activities, and shape house norms together

- Offer and facilitate skill building, prosocial activities, and other group activities to support community connection and recovery skills with all residents.

- Resolve roommate and household conflicts through a restorative justice lens rather than rule-enforcement

- Model healthy recovery behaviors and social skills in the shared living environment — mutuality is the foundation of peer support, and the House Manager lives it visibly

- Foster an atmosphere where residents of diverse backgrounds, including those with co-occurring mental health and medical needs, feel safe and welcomed

- Organize communal activities that build connection without prescribing what recovery should look like for any individual resident

- Responsible for the daily functioning of the house — safety, logistics, and shared resources. This is administrative work in service of recovery: a house that runs well is a house where residents can focus on their own healing.

- Unlike office-based mentors, the House Manager sees the real-life moments of recovery — the 7:00 PM cravings, the 8:00 AM anxiety before a job interview, the late-night call from a family member. The role is to be present, peer-to-peer, in those moments.

- Provide trauma-informed, on-the-spot peer support during non-traditional hours (evenings and weekends) when cravings or stressors are often highest

- Assist residents in navigating their individualized recovery plans as they transition from clinical treatment into community life

- Serve as the first point of contact for house-level emergencies, using de-escalation techniques that prioritize resident dignity and avoid escalating to law enforcement unless safety requires it

- Maintain peer relationships grounded in mutuality — sharing lived experience, not directing outcomes
Operational Oversight

- Conduct regular safety walkthroughs — fire drills, health and safety checks, basic hazard identification — and coordinate maintenance requests with the facilities team

- Manage move-in orientations and move-out transitions so residents feel welcomed and respected during these high-stress milestones

- Oversee communal supplies and ensure household chores are distributed fairly through a collaborative process rather than top-down assignment

- Report maintenance and facilities issues promptly to the appropriate Fora Health staff

- Conduct Quarterly Fire Drills and document in compliance with Fora standards [SG1.1][SG1.2][NH1.3]

- Ability to flex any actual hours worked while responding to emergent matters.

- House manager will be responsible to keep log for after hours response for purpose of flexing their schedule.
Fidelity, scope protection, personal wellness

- Protecting the peer relationship is a core job duty and relies on mutuality. It is essential to demonstrate the skills to not drift into a role of a friend nor engage in a parental/authoritative dynamic with residents.

- Ensure the house remains a peer-driven space by empowering residents to make their own choices rather than acting as a traditional authority figure

- Resist clinical drift — the House Manager does not perform clinical assessments, administer medications, or otherwise step into clinical scope

- Surface scope pressure and boundary issues to the Peer Supervisor (Housing) as organizational problems, not individual performance problems

- Maintain a personal wellness plan and adhere to defined off-duty hours during which another staff member is the designated point of contact

- Taking quarterly respite (time away from the property) is highly encouraged by Fora Home.

- Maintain non-clinical, strength-based records of house activities and resident progress in accordance with peer fidelity standards

- Participate actively in the supervision relationship with the Peer Supervisor (Housing), including raising concerns early about burnout, boundary erosion, or scope creep
Private Quarters
The House Manager is provided with a secure, private living space within the facility that is strictly off-limits to residents. This space exists to protect personal privacy, rest, and the off-duty time that makes the role sustainable. This living space is conditional on employment as house manager at Fora Home. This does not create tenancy. Housing is conditional upon employment and ends upon separation of employment. A separate occupancy agreement will govern this process.
Schedule and on-call expectations
The role is 40 hours per week, structured as a mix of scheduled on site hours and defined on-call availability. The house manager uses off-duty time freely and is not compensable work time.[AL2.1] As this position is in a live-in position the house manager is expected to sleep onsite at Fora Home on all nights unless there are pre-planned and scheduled time away from the home, with the exception of a personal emergency.

Supervisory Functions

- Partner with after hour security services for door and property security. Includes accessing and viewing security camera to assist in follow up of any breach in security concerns, including any safety concerns between patients.

- Provide direct oversight and support to peer mentors and residents to resolve any urgent staff and/or patient interpersonal conflict needs. Ensure follow up and consultation with peer mentor supervisor following any such needs.
Requirements
Qualifications Required

- Lived experience of substance use recovery — self-identified as a person in sustained recovery from a substance use disorder for a minimum of 2 years.

- Current Oregon Certified Recovery Mentor (CRM) through MHACBO, or ability to obtain within 6 months of hire-preference given to active CRM

- Willingness to reside in a private, designated unit within the transitional housing facility as a primary residence

- Demonstrated conflict resolution and de-escalation skills, with the ability to handle high-stress moments without escalating to authority-based responses

- Understanding of peer support scope of practice and the boundaries that distinguish peer work from clinical roles

- Personal stability sufficient to handle the triggers and demands of a transitional housing environment
Qualifications Preferred

- Dual certification: Peer Wellness Specialist (PWS) or Mental Health Peer Support Specialist through the Traditional Health Worker Commission (THW) — given the housing context, dual certification is strongly preferred to address the medical and mental health complexities of residents

- Prior experience in transitional housing, Oxford House™ traditions, or community organizing

- Experience contributing to the development of house culture agreements, community norms, or peer-led housing policies

- Familiarity with Oregon MHACBO fidelity standards
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES REQUIRED

- Has basic knowledge of substance use disorders and mental health symptoms

- Can describe how substance use disorders affect families and concerned others.

- Effectively communicates and establishes rapport

- Demonstrates ability to facilitate skill building groups and house meetings

- Able to effectively engage in problem solving and independent decision making.

- Understands emergency situations and protocols to maintain a safe milieu. Ability to use de-escalation skills in crisis situations.
OTHER REQUIREMENTS

- For employees with a history of substance use disorder, Fora Health’s policy requires certification of a minimum of two years of sobriety for this position.

- Ability to pass a pre-employment or for cause drug tests.

- Ability to pass DHS criminal background.

- Completed registration with Oregon Health Authority (DMAP) and National Plan and Provider Identifier (NPI).
WORKING CONDITIONS

- This position generally works in an indoor office and recovery residence environment.

- Position requires some evening and weekend work based on residents needs and house schedule. Adjustment of work schedule may be required to avoid overtime

- Possible exposure to communicable diseases which can encompass a variety of illnesses and infections, including tuberculosis, Hepatitis A, B, and C, and HIV.

- Possible exposure to upset, angry, severely traumatized, disabled, or emotionally disturbed adults and families.

- Shift work may include weekday, weekend, and holiday hours.

- Exposure to potentially hazardous cleaning chemicals, personal protective equipment provided.