While Barcelon Associates excels in the administration, accounting, maintenance, occupancy and human resources aspects of property management, we bring one additional strength to our qualifications as potential property managers: since 1986 Barcelon Associates has recognized the need for offering services “beyond bricks and mortar” to the residents who live in buildings that we manage. For decades, we have strongly believed that each senior resident has the right and deserves to have access to community resource services. As a result, we became one of the first property management firms to have an in-house resident social services department.
In 1986, Barcelon Associates created a site staff position at a recently built property for low-income seniors. The original title for this position was Coordinator for Community and Personal Life. It was the vision of Mark Barcelon that this staff person would interact with residents on issues related to non-administrative issues such as benefits, families, health, and other related needs. Years later, HUD was to formalize this position and created a Service Coordinator program.
Since that time, Barcelon Associates has built a large and strong Resident Services Coordination Department that has placed service coordinators in many of the low-income senior properties that we manage. We have maintained a corporate position of a Director of Resident Services and have provided community resources not only to our senior properties, but also to our properties serving physically disabled adults, as well as to those properties that serve families.
In our senior properties, our service coordinators actively support the notion of “aging-in-place”. This philosophy seeks to bring services to bear for frail and at-risk seniors so that they might enjoy as many of the remaining years of their lives living in their own apartment instead of being prematurely institutionalized. We work with our residents to connect them to services in the community that will enhance their quality of life while also making them safer in their homes.
Through our Resident Services Department and our service coordinators, Barcelon Associates seeks to live out our belief that each person living in properties that we manage is valuable, important, and worthy of all of the care and assistance that we can provide. We firmly believe that when the social-service needs of our residents are being met, the residents benefit greatly. We also know that this benefits management, the physical site, and the owners, as well.