Keep HOA Aging Residents in Mind With These Tips
Associations that have been around for a long time typically have more aging HOA residents than young ones. Although these residents initially bought their homes when they were in a different stage in their lives, the HOA must still take the necessary steps to accommodate the present-day needs of their aging community members.
A lot of associations find it difficult to juggle the needs of their elderly residents with the needs of more youthful residents who might have moved to the HOA at a later phase. If your HOA requires help with taking care of aging residents, consider the tips below.
1. Keep Up With State and Local Laws for Disabled HOA Residents
Every state has legislation stating how an association must tackle protecting HOA aging residents. These laws, though, are not permanent and change over time.
An association can keep aging residents in mind by constantly staying informed of new legislation concerning the elderly. Your HOA board should check for these changes in the fall and then again in January. This way, you can make room in your budget for unanticipated improvements or repairs to comply with the new legal requirements.
With ages comes a handful of disabilities, and many residents may soon struggle with their motor skills or suffer from impaired vision. Though regrettable, these disabilities can put your HOA in a lot of legal trouble. As such, it is critical to always keep up-to-date with the latest regulations to help protect your association from liability.
If new legislation is passed and you are uncertain how it will affect your association, it is a good idea to confer with an attorney with experience in HOA-related matters. By doing so, you can make informed decisions that will not legally jeopardize your HOA.
2. Improve the Safety of Community Areas
Repairs are always part of the HOA game, but even more so when aging residents are involved. Make sure to inspect gates, doors, walkways, and ramps to see if they need repairs. Elderly residents normally have difficulty moving around and even the smallest of obstructions can send them falling. This is especially true for HOA aging residents who use walkers or wheelchairs. Uneven surfaces can cause serious harm to them.
3. Consider Senior-Friendly Guidelines
Most associations have regulations concerning landscaping. But, elderly residents are less likely to be able to perform maintenance work on their lawns and yards.
If your community has a large percentage of aging members, examine your policies to see if you can adapt them
to make them friendlier to the elderly. In the case of landscaping, consider hiring a landscaping company to take care of the work for those in the community who have difficulty doing it themselves. You can charge an extra fee for this in addition to the regular assessments.
When reviewing your HOA policies, see which of them can be altered to make life easier for the residents without sacrificing your association’s standards. Doing so can increase your resident retention rate as well as your homeowners’ satisfaction rate. This, in turn, will positively affect your community’s property values and draw in more prospective residents.
Naturally, in a homeowners association, one of your goals is to fill any vacancies in your community. This will allow you to maximize the HOA’s income in the form of dues which can be used to enhance the quality of life for your residents.
4. Gather Emergency Contacts for All Residents
It would be in every association’s best interest to assemble a list of emergency contacts. This can help all community members, not just the HOA aging residents, though it will definitely be most beneficial for the older demographic.
An emergency contact list will allow the HOA to get in touch with close relatives if ever the situation calls for it. It will also make residents feel at ease to know that someone will reach out to their emergency contact should something happen.
5. Organize Regular Community Events
When people get older, their mobility decreases. As such, a lot of your senior residents may not have the ability to drive or travel as frequently as they did in the past. Take this as the HOA’s chance to help more elderly residents form closer relationships with other people in the community. You can easily do this by organizing and hosting regular community events.
See to it that you set aside a portion of your HOA budget
for these events. By presenting an avenue for older residents to make a connection, they will feel included and appreciated, thereby making your community a better place to live in.
6. Communicate with Aging Residents
For an HOA board filled with younger members, it can be difficult to ascertain exactly what older residents need. You can easily address this matter by keeping an open line of communication with these residents, allowing them to provide feedback and express their concerns without fear of judgment.
It is also important to realize that older residents are not as tech-savvy
as younger ones, so they may not know how to use digital mediums of communication. With that in mind, make sure to utilize a medium that will work for both the board and the HOA aging residents.
7. Conduct Age Surveys Every Year
Your community can benefit from a regular survey of every household in the association. Not all properties remain with the same owner for years on end. Some may choose to sell their properties and move out, allowing for new blood to join the association.
For larger associations, it is difficult to keep track of the average age of the households in the community without conducting a survey. By doing so, you can adapt your activities and maintenance work to gear more towards the largest demographic of your community.
All Residents Are Important
Everyone will eventually age — it is simply a fact of life. Sadly, society has been programmed to ignore the needs of the elderly and focus on younger generations instead. An HOA should be different.
In a community, all residents have equal value, and that includes HOA aging residents. For this reason, an HOA must keep them in mind at all times and make sure they are as satisfied as everyone else in the community.
Note: The original article appeared on HOAManagement.com.