covid19 letter to residents

3-17-20

Dear Residents,

Centerspace is closely monitoring the changing landscape of residential community operations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We have and continue to take action to protect our communities, team members, and the broader communities in which we operate. This includes responsive changes that affect you as we seek to protect our communities and accommodate the needs of our residents.

The following measures have been implemented effective immediately:

  • We have enacted and are encouraging social distancing practices for our team and within our communities in order to do our part to stop movement of the virus in our broader communities. We ask that you respect this in your interactions with our team members and use electronic or phone communication as much as possible. Remember, visiting centerspacehomes.com will allow you to pay rent, submit service requests and contact your community team for any needs that arise.
  • In order to best address potential exposure, we request that you notify us of any self-quarantine or positive COVID-19 diagnosis by self-reporting through the survey found at https://dispatch.centerspacehomes.com/Maintenance/CovidReporting. We will treat all reports confidentially except as required by federal, state or local law.
  • Effective immediately, we will be closing all common amenity spaces and offerings until further notice in an effort to support social distancing. This includes on-site fitness centers, community rooms, swimming pools, resident coffee services and conference facilities. All resident community room reservations will be cancelled through March.
  • Our office team will not be accepting resident packages for in-person pick up. We have instructed our delivery drivers to deliver resident packages directly to resident doors. We encourage you to specify this on shipping instructions, or to contact your delivery service and arrange for your packages to be held for pick up directly from the carrier. This will not affect the use of package locker system on-site or an independent package pick up service.
  • We have and may continue to adjust our day-to-day operations, including but not limited to:
    • Prioritizing emergency work orders and delaying completion of non-essential work orders;
    • Increasing cleaning frequency and providing self-hygiene reminders for our team and residents; and
    • Reduction of community-based staffing as we honor the needs of our team members;
    • Working to accommodate delayed move-out dates for those of you who find that your plans to move out of our community have changed;
    • If you are currently receiving a reasonable accommodation such as door-to-dumpster trash removal, our team is committed to continue this service for you.
  • We request you promptly let your community office know if the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted your ability to meet the financial obligations of your lease. We are committed to the long-term financial viability of our communities and understand that you may experience financial disruption during these times. We will continue to assess and will communicate any changes to our policies related to fees and collection matters.

Our first priority is the health and well-being of our residents, team members and the communities we serve, including 70 communities consisting of approximately 12,000 homes across six states. Rest assured that we are taking appropriate care of our team members so that we can continue to service our communities by requiring social distancing and remote work arrangements where possible, and we are working to maintain compensation and flexibility for our teams even with reduced hours and potential quarantine/illness situations.

The COVID-19 pandemic will require that we all change our lives as we knew them for a period of time. We ask for your patience, understanding and flexibility as we navigate the coming days and weeks.

Be well,

Mark O. Decker, Jr.
President and CEO
Centerspace