How important in community safety to your homeowner’s association? Do you want to make sure that your community has a safe environment for all homeowners? The best part about keeping your community updated about the latest events and issues is fostering a sense of community.
Time To Get The Community Together
The entire neighborhood is able to get involved in protecting both their homes from natural disasters and burglaries. You can even be saving lives by reminding them of updating locks, practicing CO prevention, and more.
Read on for our HOA guide for effective community safety protocols that you can start implementing today.
Build Relationship with Local Police
It’s important to remember that no matter what protocols you have in place, it’s still possible that your neighborhood will experience a crime of some kind. This can be anything from domestic disputes that you’re unable to control, car burglary, and more. This is why it’s important to establish a relationship with your local police sooner rather than later.
If your local police force is small, this may mean contacting the chief directly and having a meeting. Larger departments will have a community liaison that you can communicate with regularly to keep them informed of issues in the neighborhood. However, it’s important that you prioritize your complaints and don’t waste the officers’ time.
This means to stress the fact that homeowners should only call the police when they’re in immediate danger. It’s important that neighbors try to resolve personal problems or nuisances with themselves first before the authorities are involved. You’ll also need to form a partnership with police and realize that the solutions they come up with may not be what you expected.
Create a Newsletter
Keeping all of your residents informed about local events and issues can be hard since not everyone is active in their community. This can be especially true for elderly neighbors. By creating a bi-weekly, monthly, or quarterly newsletter, you’ll be able to keep everyone in the neighborhood informed for a low cost. You can pass on community safety tips such as:
- CO poisoning and prevention
- Recent problem reports
- Home-defense safety tips
- Natural disaster safety plans
You can keep the information timely by providing information about national or worldwide events that pertain to the homeowners. You can also help foster community pride by photographing landscaped yards, highlighting cute pets, and advertise local businesses that need a boost.
Remember that you can also collect homeowner’s emails during events and use that to send out digital newsletters directly to their inboxes. Just make sure that they have a clear way to “opt-out” of these newsletters if they
Home Preparation
Protecting homes against burglary is one of the most important steps to safeguard a homeowner’s family, possessions, and peace of mind. However, homeowners can feel overwhelmed by the services and goods available. They may not have the budget for the most comprehensive systems, so they’ll refrain from investing in anything.
It’s important that you educate homeowners about what they can do to protect their homes to give them a sense of agency. Here are a few tips you can give them that can help homeowners with all kinds of budgets:
Install Monitored Home Alarm Systems
Home alarm systems can be monitored 24/7 by a team of professionals or not monitored at all. It’s usually best to invest in the monitored alarm system. It’s usually an affordable monthly cost, and homeowners will have the peace of mind needed that if someone is planning to break in, the police department will be contacted.
Set Up Deterrents
If homeowners can’t afford a fully monitored alarm system, lights are the next best way to deter criminals. Motion-activated lights that also include alarms are especially effective, but they could also invest in regular lights that illuminate normally dark areas that are covered with shrubbery.
Lights and a loud radio can also be set on a timer while homeowners away to make it seem as if someone is still home.
Install Dead Bolts
Updating old locks on your doors is another effective way to protect homes from burglary. The harder a door is to kick open, the more noise a burglar will need to make in order to gain access inside. During that time, they may give up and the homeowner or neighbors will have time to call the police.
Smart Landscaping
Landscaping that’s too overgrown, especially near doors and windows, can actually draw burglars towards a home. This is because they’ll be able to force open a window or door out of view. Homeowners can help eliminate entry and exit points by planting thorny shrubs near windows.
They can also make sure that the height and width of shrubs are trimmed down so that adults can’t hide behind them. Lastly, it’s important to contact an arborist to regularly prune trees so that they’re not blocking light sources during the night.
Community Safety Signs
Investing in community safety signs can also help keep your community safe. These signs can protect against solicitors or trespassers. They can also alert people of areas where guests can park. Best of all, these signs can help keep children safe by warning people to slow down for bus stops or children playing in the area.
Signs are often the first mode of defense for common issues such as solicitors, trespassers, people stealing parking spots, and drivers going above the speed limit. These signs can help remind people of the rules, and you may not need to escalate by informing authorities if the signs are heeded.
Prioritizing Community Safety
These community safety tips can help homeowners feel safer and more active in their community. Instead of feeling as if they’re against each other, it’s important to foster a feeling of neighborly well-being and looking out for one another. This can be done by newsletters reminding everyone of safety precautions while also highlighting homeowners in the neighborhood.
Ready for a homeowners association management team that will take the time to learn the unique needs of your community? Request a proposal with us today!
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