Three Solutions for COVID-related Problems in Affordable Housing Operations
Maintaining your operations while observing CDC social distancing guidelines is a formidable challenge. To help you address this challenge, we’re sharing three creative solutions from our property management partners to help you overcome operational hurdles and ensure your business needs continue to be met.
Accepting Applications
Problem
Applying for affordable housing traditionally involves significant paperwork and person-to-person contact. For example, application submission often requires applicants to drop off paper copies of their applications at various leasing offices. And eligibility screening requires property managers to conduct on-site interviews with multiple prospective tenants. It’s no wonder traditional methods of applying for affordable housing do not meet CDC guidelines to minimize the spread of COVID-19.
So how do you accept affordable housing applications while adhering to CDC social distancing guidelines?
Solution
Now it’s possible to use digital solutions to eliminate physical and in-person steps. Ideally, instead of paper application drop-offs, you can implement an online application for prospective tenants to safely complete and submit. Another digital-only solution is to allow people to email completed applications to a secure company inbox.
But what if you absolutely must allow applicants to mail or drop-off paper applications? In this case, we recommend scanning paper submissions to keep all applications in a central location. However, it’s essential to implement these best practices to stay safe for your on-site staff beforehand.
Property Tours
Problem
Most applicants prefer to see a unit before agreeing to sign a lease and move in. However, conducting an in-person tour while practicing social and physical distancing is all but impossible.
How do you maintain a safe environment for your staff and community and allow prospective tenants to preview their potential homes?
Solution
Property managers and leasing agents can use online tools to show units to applicants who want to preview a property before making a commitment.
One simple solution is to take photos of all rooms from multiple angles to share with applicants. This can help them get a sense of the home without ever stepping foot on the property. Note that if this is something you would like to do, it’s important to ensure good lighting for each photo, whether that means opening the blinds on a sunny day or turning on the lights indoors.
Another modern yet easy-to-implement solution is hosting video tours for applicants. Leasing agents can use a number of free tools such as Zoom, Skype, or FaceTime, to complete virtual walkthroughs while answering applicant questions as they arise.
Lastly, to reach a wider audience, we recommend utilizing the live features on Facebook or Instagram. These features allow leasing agents to host apartment tours for multiple prospective tenants at once which can be a huge time-saver for busy agents.
Recertifications
Problem
Similar to the affordable housing application process, recertification traditionally requires a great deal of paperwork and in-person contact. For example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) mandates that annual reviews of family and individual income be completed to determine the amount paid by the tenant for their subsidized unit. And due to the economic fallout of the pandemic, HUD has reassessed many requirements of the recertification process to account for the massive changes in income..
Solution
HUD recognizes the extenuating circumstances that owners and tenants face that can impede the recertification process. The most prominent changes to recertification are that HUD will now allow:
tenants to self-certify any loss of income caused by COVID-19
e-signatures on recertification forms
required documentation to be sent to the property owner digitally, as long as both wet signatures and original documents from the tenant are obtained at a later date
In light of these changes, it’s important to let your current tenants know these new procedures are in place. This will help ease the administrative burden on your staff and allow them to continue working on recertifications to ensure any economic hardships your tenants experience are accounted for in their monthly rental payments.
Stay Ahead of the Curve
Haven Connect is here to help. For more resources on covid-19 check out our blog posts on Effective Property Management When Working From Home and our Breakdown of how the CARES act Impacts the Affordable Housing Industry..
Thank you and stay safe!