Vickie discusses helpful reminders about the precautions that will keep your staff and residents safe during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

First and foremost, remember that HUD encourages property owners and agents to follow the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines and the direction of local health officials in all cases.

• All staff should be required to wear masks, protective face coverings, and gloves (especially when sharing papers & pens with residents and vendors) at work.
• It’s important to have social-distancing measures in place to keep people as safe as possible.  If possible visually mark off spacing boundaries for your staff and residents.
• Post signs that say “Please No Handshaking, No Hugging, No greetings with staff or visitors.”
• Rethink an open office policy for residents, visitors, and vendors. 
• Post office days & hours. Schedule one-on-one appointments with residents. If possible have a “dropbox” from the outside to the inside so that residents can drop documents off without having direct contact.
• Have residents call the office with questions, and if they have to leave a message return their calls promptly. Those who just insist on seeing your face, arrange to meet them outside practicing social-distancing and privacy.
• If you need to relay important information, and outside, scheduled appointments will NOT work, then hold virtual meetings through apps like Zoom, Facetime, Google Duo, or Skype, etc.
• To avoid staff burn-out and anxiety, stagger work days and times.
•  Place barriers between staff work areas and between staff and resident areas.
• Keep extra masks, hand sanitizers, on-hand for staff and residents. In addition keep anti-bacterial hand soap, disinfectant wipes, and sprays for staff.
• If the staff is sick with a fever, runny nose, coughing, sneezing, etc., allow them to take a sick day, vacation, or unpaid time off and stay home.  If they come in and the symptoms are obvious, SEND THEM HOME.  If residents or visitors come in with the same type of symptoms, ask them to come back when they are feeling better or to call into the office.
• Go over and access your office routines and procedures to see if there are any improvements that need to be made for your COVID-19 precautions.

Remember, the more we work together to follow these tips and precautions, the more we will be able to keep our staff and residents safe during this ongoing virus.

Check out last week’s tip on COVID-19 Precautions for your Building.

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