Barcelon Associates affirms that one of the primary goals of our management is to provide clean, safe, and well-maintained housing for all who call our workplace their home. To meet this goal, we start with hiring great staff, providing all the resources and training needed to be successful, and maintain an ongoing diligence toward ongoing site maintenance needs. Our sites’ Administrators walk their property daily and our Asset Managers walk our sites weekly. In this way, we catch problems before they grow into crises.
Barcelon Associates has a maintenance manual designed to be a “working” manual for site maintenance staff and includes the following focus areas:
- Analysis, Implementation, and Evaluation
- Maintenance Priorities
- Safety
- Maintenance Files
- Property Inspections
- Maintenance Work Orders
- Charts and System Controls
- Landscaping and Grounds
- Special Items (such as key/lock systems, sanitation, working with contractors, equipment, and energy conservation)
Barcelon Associates’ long-term goals are to assist all Barcelon-managed sites to move toward more environmentally friendly and sustainable operations. This process can benefit the environment, the residents, and, in many cases, the bottom financial line. This process includes but is not limited to enhanced recycling, eco-friendly paper and cleaning products, energy efficient lighting, and drought-resistant landscaping. This is a process that will involve discussions with our owners and boards of directors. An additional and exciting component of this process also includes an exploration of the cost/benefit assessment of installing solar energy enhancements such as solar heated water and/or photovoltaic electricity production.
In addition to providing quality maintenance at all of the sites we manage, Barcelon Associates has developed a methodology that helps improve HUD/REAC physical inspection scores. During the last few years, several of our sites received scores above 90 points during physical inspections; two sites reached scores of 99. While we recognize that HUD’s inspection regime can be subjective and unfair at times, we also believe that vigilance, determination, and knowing HUD’s system also assists in achieving good inspection scores.
Finally, Barcelon Associates works with all of the sites we manage, and with all of the owners to implement an approach to site maintenance needs that is both short-term and long-term. It is critical to your goals that long-range plans are developed and implemented to extend the life of each of your properties to its maximum. With proper ongoing maintenance, coupled with preventive maintenance and intentional rehabilitation projects, all sites can easily have many more years of useful service to the community and its residents.