Meet the CAAS Staff! Q&A With Ricky

CAAS is rolling out a new series of staff profiles to highlight the incredible people on our team that make our work possible! Every person is an integral part of the process that allows us to serve clients and families every day.

The first profile is on Ricky, the Lead Housing Advocate here at CAAS! Ricky has been here since October 1st, 2018 (coincidentally, that’s right at the start of the Housing Advocacy Program cycle!) and has been helping to provide Somerville families with legal assistance, housing searches, and eviction prevention ever since. 

How did you get started at CAAS and in the field?

I was thrown right into it, but I was excited because CAAS’s work caught my eye. It’s ideal to live and work in the community that you’re serving, and good to have a knowledge and sense of where things are. I’ve learned more about the issues that clients face and lack of housing. We’ve seen increasingly unaffordable rents and a decreasing stock of units than in 2018. It’s harder to find affordable units in Somerville. It was difficult then, but it’s harder now.

The combination of the direct services component and the policy work interested me. Living in Somerville, I started looking for a policy-oriented job, but I thought if I was in Somerville and could work with the community on more direct services, it was worth pursuing. I was following the work that City Life / Vida Urbana was doing and started looking for things that were similar in Somerville. What caught my eye was being able to stay where I was and build the skills I had in a way that was more interesting to me with the people around me.

What have you found challenging about this work?

The hardest part is the number of details that are constantly changing–Funding sources, staffing, even staffing within other organizations in Somerville. From a logistical standpoint, there are a lot of things changing. There are always people moving in and out and different players and providers and things to learn. But we can adapt. You always have to be very on top of keeping up, essentially. The program has to constantly change because housing is, on the whole, definitely becoming less accessible to clients and to residents.

When advocates first start, we see that systems and structures in place aren't changing to support the most vulnerable populations in the city. Seeing that over and over becomes difficult. At the end of the day, we’re more focused on emergency intervention and helping people get where they need to be, but our clients are going to keep facing the same difficulties under the same system. You do get relief knowing you helped someone with a difficult aspect of their life. Housing should be regarded as a human right, but it’s not true based on what we see every day. Lack of broader actual large-scale change is one of the harder things to deal with.

What keeps you energized around this work?

The thing I find most energizing is being able to see the clients I've assisted who are able to stay in the community. We work with so many clients that you’re going to see them around. It’s nice to know you can help people stay where they are and avoid being displaced from the community.

Besides helping someone maintain or preserve their tenancy, it’s great to help them get out of the situation they’re in with a voucher or subsidy. And although we can’t necessarily get them to their ultimate goal in a short period of time, at the end of the day we’re providing a level of moral support. Someone knows that an advocate is on their side and their side only–that’s important to have for people who are facing these challenges. We might be their only case worker. We’re not social workers or attorneys, but we do a lot of things that fall in between. It’s knowing that we’re able to assist clients in that unique way. And for me, knowing we can assist people in this area. There are so many populations in the city who are bearing the brunt of the negative aspects of what systems we currently live in. It becomes obvious that low income families are struggling, immigrants are struggling, but helping people is the most important at the end of the day.

What do you like to do for fun outside of work?

Mostly watch Love Island and make music with friends.