Assistant Community Manager (Palo Alto Gardens)

What You'll Actually Do

Palo Alto Gardens is an affordable housing community managed by MidPen Housing, a non-profit with over 50 years of experience and one of the larger affordable portfolios in Northern California. This Assistant Community Manager role sits squarely in the operational center of the property. You'll handle income verifications, lease prep, waitlist maintenance, and rent collection. You'll process turns, monitor turnover forms, and coordinate with facilities staff to keep work orders moving. Compliance work is a real part of this job: re-certifications, MOR prep, TCAC reviews, welfare exemption documents. If you've worked affordable housing before, you know that compliance is not a once-a-year event. It's a steady drumbeat.

Resident relations are woven through all of it. You'll issue notices, communicate emergency procedures, and coordinate logistics for resident meetings. You'll also maintain resident and property files with appropriate confidentiality and support relationships with local law enforcement and emergency agencies when needed. The reporting line is directly to the Community Manager.

One genuine advantage of the affordable housing side of our industry: the compliance framework gives new managers a structured way to build their skills. Tax credit and HUD requirements teach you documentation discipline that transfers well to any property type later. It's not glamorous, but it builds real competency.

What You Bring

• High school diploma or GED with at least one year of residential property management, customer service, or administrative experience (or an equivalent combination)
• Proficiency in MS Office; familiarity with RealPage is a plus
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with genuine follow-through
• Ability to work independently and stay organized without someone checking over your shoulder
• Comfort with the compliance demands of affordable housing, specifically tax credit and HUD regulatory environments
• Multilingual skills in Mandarin, Russian, or Spanish are preferred and likely useful given the resident community
• Alignment with MidPen's mission around affordable housing and community stability

Context Worth Knowing

The pay range is $21.15 to $23.80 hourly, based on experience. Benefits include health, dental, vision, life and disability insurance, a 403(b) retirement plan, paid parental leave, FSA options for childcare, medical, and commuter expenses, an employee education reimbursement program, an EAP, pet insurance, paid time off, company holidays, and wellness days. This is a non-profit employer, so the 403(b) structure is standard here rather than a 401(k).

Candidates who do well in affordable housing operations tend to have genuine patience for process and a resident-centered orientation that isn't performative. The compliance side of this work rewards people who find satisfaction in getting details right the first time. If you're coming from conventional market-rate housing and haven't worked with TCAC or HUD regulatory frameworks before, expect a learning curve on the compliance piece. It's manageable, but it's real.