Community associations have had to adapt quickly to COVID-19 and adhere to social distancing.  Both HOAs and Condos have to change the way they do board meetings, events and manage community life. Here we have six ideas on community social distancing.

1 – Online meetings

If the board needs to meet to discuss measures, or chat with their property manager there are a lot of options to have a meeting online.

You could use Zoom, Google Hangouts, or Whereby, for instance. They allow you to call in on a phone or join through your computer. You can also share your screen so that you can all view a specific document. If you require a full community socially distanced meeting then you can use the Neighbors virtual meetings tool. This allows you to share your full meeting agenda by email before the meeting. 

2 – Documents 

You could use this time to upload association documents to your website or password-protected portal to boost productivity now and in the future. If you need to scan a lot of physical documents, then use CamScanner to easily upload them to Neighbors, Google Drive, or Dropbox.

Under Florida law, it’s obligatory to have certain documents available to residents. Even if you don’t live in Florida it’s a good idea to try to have similar documents available to all homeowners. If you have all your CC&Rs available easily, then residents won’t need to message the board asking where you are. It also helps with social distancing if residents don’t need to go to the community manager’s office to ask their questions.

3 – Communication

While your community is socially distanced, it’s essential to be able to talk to residents. Especially as State and local recommendations keep changing. You have a few options on how best to do this. You could create a Facebook group where everyone can post and chat. Another alternative is to send emails or text messages around regularly. 

The other option is to sign up for HOA software where you can easily send emails, texts, and smart calls. Having communication software is useful when you feel that you’re using a lot of different tools and need to be more efficient.

If you’re not ready for full software, then an HOA website can help you. It is very easy to create a website using a template, and it’s very useful to communicate with residents and prospective owners.

4 – Voting

Votes can always be delayed, but if there’s one that you really need to get out of the way, why not move it online? Online voting is approved in Florida, but please check your State before starting the process.

Once you’ve checked, you can use tools like Election Buddy, one of SBS’ options, or Association Voting to have a socially distanced community vote. You can use Neighbors’ survey feature for an unofficial vote. This gives you an idea of how your community is feeling.

5 – Socially distanced Activities

If you’re unsure of what to do or feel like you need some advice you could take some time to listen to condo and HOA podcasts. You can organize some activities that are community-based and socially distanced, such as an exercise class. This could involve having an instructor come in while everyone follows from their balconies, or sending exercise videos around daily.

For Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas we have specific ideas on what you can do. Day to day, you could organize community drawings. Every week you pick a theme and the children (and adults) can draw something related and put it in their windows. 

6 – Community volunteering

If people in your community are at risk of COVID-19 then set up a buddy scheme. This could involve someone else buying their groceries, walking their dog, or making them some meals and dropping them off on the person’s doorstep. This creates a really lovely sense of community when the world feels like an intimidating place. Even a phone call to a neighbor can make a real difference to how someone feels. Organizing a volunteering scheme especially during COVID-19 creates solidarity and a community feel.

Creating and managing a community with social distancing isn’t easy, but it can be very rewarding. If there is one thing that the pandemic has shown us is that we can create community even with social distancing.