Page 16 - NJ Cooperator Summer 2020

16 THE NEW JERSEY COOPERATOR —SUMMER 2020 NJCOOPERATOR.COM 605 Candlewood Commons, Howell, NJ info@regencymanagementgroup.biz | 732-364-5900 WWW.REGENCYMANAGEMENTGROUP.BIZ PROPERTY MANAGEMENT. PROPERLY MANAGED. FOR US, IT’S PERSONAL Our Comprehensive Solutions Include: • Interactive website with online forms • Responsive customer service with postcard, email and phone notifications • Live call center staffed with an experienced team of management professionals • Digital systems for work tickets, resident data and board communication • Complete Financial Management Services including Collections, General Accounting, Monthly & Annual Reporting and Annual Budget Preparation Regency Management Group Combines leading edge technology with the personal attention and service your community deserves. Relationships Matter. Let us be your trusted partner for all your Property Management needs. anybody what’s going on. So that can be an issue.” Cognitive impairments, Fraser explains, more than half his life, and he always said, can be caused by a wide range of conditions, ‘All people, regardless of their circumstanc- including but not limited to: developmental es, have some obligation to be prepared to disabilities, multiple sclerosis, depression, take action during an emergency and to alcoholism, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, trau- matic brain injury, chronic fatigue, stroke, Th e right way is to go out and train people and some psychiatric conditions. “All result before a disaster occurs.” in the decrease in ability to process and understand information,” he says. “Th ey impair a person from accessing building features due to the inability to process and understand the information necessary to use those features.” Helping Out So how to plan for everyone in your building—regardless of age or physical limitation? “One of the things I say that should be done is emergency contacts,” says Susan Birenbaum, founder of Humanitude, a na- tional organization that deals with issues for seniors. “Every building should have a list of emergency contacts for individuals — and on this list should be an indicator of whether people need emergency assistance. Whether there’s a need for a wheelchair, or if they have young children or older adults, or children with special needs. Every- one should be aware of this, and everyone should have this list.” Th e New Jersey Offi ce of Emergency Management (NJ-OEM), the governing body in times of both natural and man- made crisis, suggests making a personal emergency plan. First, pick “buddies” who will help you, as you will help them, during a potential emergency. “Don’t go through an emergency alone. Ask at least two people to be in your emergency support network — family members, friends, neighbors, caregivers, coworkers, or members of com- munity groups. Remember, you can help and provide comfort to each other in emer- gencies.” Second, write down instructions. “Pre- written cards or text messages can help you share information with your support network or emergency responders during a stressful or uncomfortable situation. You may not have much time to get your mes- sage across,” according to the OEM. “Phras- es can include: I may have diffi culty under- standing what you are telling me. Please speak slowly and use simple language or pictures. I use a device to communicate. I am deaf and use American Sign Language. Please write down directions. I speak \\\[in- sert language below\\\].” Also prudent, OEM says, is to pick a meeting place; pack a “go-bag” with im- portant documents, medicines, water, and your passport; and know where you could stay both in and out of the city, in case of evacuation. Boards and HOAs can take the lead in having emergency contact lists, making sure vulnerable residents are accounted for during an emergency, and so on. Residents, too, can help. “Th e former chair of our disability com- mittee,” Fraser recalls, “used a wheelchair assume responsibility for their own safety.’ n Greg Olear is a freelance writer and novel- ist and a regular contributor to Th e New Jersey Cooperator. VULNERABLE... continued from page 15 management and building operations pro- fessionals—that the sheer number of pack- ages is overwhelming. Th e professionals estimate that there has been a 60 to 70% increase in boxes and other types of deliver- ies to the buildings they serve over the last decade. One particularly cumbersome vari- ety they're seeing more and more frequently is large boxes containing furniture meant to be assembled by the purchaser. Furniture is rarely delivered fully assembled to a waiting resident anymore. Because the existing storage area in the concierge's building is just too small to handle this type of delivery, “We oft en have to store large box deliveries like these in the emergency fi re hallway in the rear of the building,” says the concierge. “Obviously, that’s a fi re hazard and a violation. We try to move them out and to the resident’s apart- ment as quickly as possible.” And Amazon—that titan of convenience that has become something of a lifeline dur- ing the pandemic —is the main driver of the package tsunami, explains our concierge. And it's not just the deliveries coming in that are complicating things; many online retailers accept free returns of merchandise as well—which means that building staff members deal with items both coming and going. Up til now, the holiday season was the toughest time of year, but with the ar- rival of COVID-19, all bets were off . On top of box delivery, the concierge says that their front desk also handles tra- ditional dry-cleaning pick-up and drop-off —which adds the dimension of dirty cloth- ing to the mix—as well as deliveries from restaurants and food markets. Th e building has a refrigerator for cold storage, but that refrigerator has a limited capacity. With all of these challenges, the building staff tries to maintain as much order as possible, but the volume can get overwhelming when residents aren’t immediately available to pick up their deliveries. (For reasons of se- curity and privacy, they prefer not to enter a resident’s apartment when the resident isn’t there.) One interesting point our concierge shared with us is that when Fresh Direct MANAGING... continued from page 7