ONS is Hiring Outreach Specialists

Every day, an extraordinary team of City employees fans out across Saint Paul, looking for people to talk to. One of them goes to a rec center to offer support to a high-school student who’s been having trouble in school. Another teammate, recognizing a familiar face at a bus shelter on University, stops by to ask if they need a shower or a meal. These people are Outreach Specialists: tough, compassionate, and creative people who spend their days building lifesaving relationships with our most vulnerable neighbors.  

And you could be one of them.  

Through March 23, 2026, the Office of Neighborhood Safety is accepting applications for Outreach Specialists to join our growing team.  

• One will join Familiar Faces to help people without shelter get from the streets to safety.  
• Three more will be part of the Project PEACE team, preventing gun violence before it happens.  

The job comes with a salary of $60,000–$85,000, comprehensive City benefits, and a tight-knit team of supportive, like-minded colleagues.

Apply to be an Outreach Specialist

A Day in the Life of an Outreach Specialist

As an Outreach Specialist, you won’t be stuck behind a desk. You’ll spend your days out and about in the City, offering kindness, respect, and practical support to folks who are having a hard time.  

Being a Familiar Face

On the Familiar Faces team, you’ll start by driving out to a place where unhoused people tend to be, like Downtown, Lowertown, or on University Avenue. Then you’ll get out of the truck and start walking.  

“When we do outreach, we’re on foot, because that makes us more approachable,” says program manager Chris Michels. “Then we’ll start talking to people to understand more about their circumstances. We offer help with basic needs (meals, showers, laundry), connections to services, shelter referrals. We strike up conversations and build rapport. Often times, we encounter people multiple times a week, and we build relationships.”  

The goal of your work: Over time, you’ll help our unsheltered neighbors find their way from the streets to safety.  

Practicing PEACE

As a Project PEACE Outreach Specialist, you’ll spend the day out in Saint Paul, building one-on-one relationships to strengthen community safety over time.  

“We work not just with people impacted by gun violence, but in proximity to it,” says Outreach Supervisor Dominique Johnson. “We go to places with high foot traffic—rec centers, libraries—to get in there to connect with our young people and families.” You might help library or rec-center staff de-escalate a tense situation, provide comfort to families in the immediate aftermath of a shooting, or spend some time just listening to a young person who’s struggling.  

Because you know our neighborhoods, you can make human connections in a unique and powerful way. “Our staff are hired from community with professional and lived experience,” explains program manager Faith Lofton, “so our way of engaging might look a little different.” That’s why it works.

Apply to be an Outreach Specialist

Challenges and Rewards

Being an Outreach Specialist isn’t easy.  

“Being from community, it can be a challenge,” Faith says. “When you know the parents or grandparents of someone in crisis, that can weigh on you. Seeing traumatic events can be a lot.” The Familiar Faces team has to have hard conversations regularly, Chris adds. “If somebody’s telling you they don’t want your help, it’s hard to push past that in a respectful manner.”

“Outreach isn’t the most pretty work,” Faith allows. “It’s something you have to want to do, to make a difference.” All your coworkers want to make a difference, too—just the way you do. That’s why you can depend on each other’s support through the challenges of the work.

“The team that we have is fantastic,” says Dominique. “We’re able to be real, to give ourselves space, and genuinely trust and be human with each other. It’s very human, real-life work. When I was applying, I had hesitancy about whether I was ready. But everyone on the team has made me feel like I made the right choice. We care about the work we’re doing.”

The rewards of the job make up for its challenges.

For Faith, there’s something sacred about the job. “Outreach workers see people at their worst times,” she reflects. “It’s a really special position, because you’re seeing people in such a vulnerable place. You’re helping to work them to a place of stability.”

And sometimes, you succeed. Take it from Chris: “This December, Outreach Specialist Sam Stoltz and I were out in City trucks and jackets. A woman Sam knows from outreach flags us down. ‘Sam, Sam, you got to go get my friend, he’s in a really bad way.’” Sam found the woman’s friend lying down in an alley, out in the cold, completely blind from an eye infection. She took him to the hospital and helped him connect to support while he was there.  

Two months later, Chris reports, he can see again. “He’s bounced back,” she says proudly. “And now he’s housed.”  

Apply to be an Outreach Specialist