Dealing with Households

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HUD rules on energy assessment and conservation encourage managers to take steps to reduce their site’s energy and water usage and to engage and educate residents in making the site a greener, more sustainable place to live. Some energy assessment and conservation measures can require significant capital improvements and upgrade of your site’s infrastructure. Many new sites are building in these measures during construction.

If your site has an elevator, it’s important that your staff know the proper steps to take when a passenger-filled elevator breaks down. If your staff doesn’t take the proper steps and passengers get injured during the breakdown, you could get sued, warns risk management consultant Rose Kugler.

Dealing with domestic violence is one of the trickiest problems site managers face. You may have observed domestic violence first hand, responded to noise complaints from neighbors, have the police called to your site, been asked to terminate a lease against a resident's abusive spouse, or been asked to help enforce a restraining order. And if you haven't already been confronted with this problem, it's likely that you will be because of the staggering number of domestic violence incidents that occur each year in the United States.

Long-term guests can be big-time headaches at assisted sites. Some residents abuse their housing assistance by letting guests stay over with them frequently or continuously. Residents may think that you won't care because they believe they're using resources at HUD's expense.

Most apartment residents are not home during the day to accept packages sent to them. That's why many sites accept packages for their residents and hold them until the residents come to pick them up. But if you do not control package deliveries and pickups, you could run into trouble, says manager Doug Chasick. People may take packages that are not theirs; packages may go unclaimed because their recipients do not know that they have arrived; or disputes may arise over when, or if, a package actually arrived and whether the resident ever picked it up.

If you are ever approached by a resident complaining of harassment by another resident, you need to take the claim seriously and follow up accordingly. The worst thing you could do is to ignore the complaint or write it off as a personal issue just between the two residents.

Your staff members deal with various types of requests from residents every day. Occasionally, a resident may feel that his or her issue has not been properly acknowledged, is not being followed up on, or that things are just taking too long. Very quickly, the request can turn into a complaint. Most often, the types of resident grievances that escalate into formal complaints against a site arise from requests for reasonable accommodations or maintenance that have been ignored or overlooked.

Individuals with AIDS, or the HIV virus that causes AIDS, continue to battle stereotypes and misconceptions. The idea that having such individuals at your site could threaten the health and safety of other residents and your staff is unfounded. Yet it persists.

As an owner or manager, one of your key responsibilities is to work with households and individuals to determine their correct level of eligibility and amount of rent and to ensure that they are placed in an appropriate unit. This is accomplished through a thorough interview where information is gathered, verified, and applied following HUD regulations and your own policies.

Successful interviewing is crucial to this process. Here are several tips that can help you and your staff during initial eligibility interviews, interim recertifications, and annual recertifications:

You already know you must provide reasonable accommodations for applicants and residents who are disabled and use a wheelchair for mobility. But as an owner or manager, you also must be certain that you maintain a safe environment for all your residents and visitors.