Marianne Krager, an associate trainer with Nan McKay and Associates (NMA), sits at a desk covered in black felt as she dutifully prepares for a long day’s work. It’s early morning, and there’s a sense of calm about Krager, even with a formation of cameras aimed at her. She’s clearly at ease about the task at hand.

While vandalism incidents may seem trivial compared to violent crime, they still come at a potentially high cost to affordable housing organizations. Repeated vandalism incidents can harm an organization’s reputation and could lead to more serious crimes.

Affordable housing organizations rehabilitating aging residential properties or building new developments are exposed to new risks, including the potential for fire on a construction site.

With flooding now the top natural peril in the U.S., and research finding that 40 percent of the nation’s occupied rental stock is located in areas likely to experience a substantial annual loss due to natural disasters, one thing’s for sure: It is critical for affordable housing providers to be prepared. On the heels of their recent webinar, titled Flood Planning and Mitigation for Affordable Housing Organizations, the Public and Affordable Housing Research Corporation’s Lead Research Analyst Kelly McElwain, and HAI Group’s Lynn Crisci, assistant director of Product Development, along with Mary Ciccaglione, manager of Risk Control and Consulting, spoke with HAI Group’s Staci Canny to answer some of the webinar audiences’ top questions.

If an emergency strikes, does your housing organization have a plan in place to remain operational, or is the development of a business continuity plan stuck on the back burner?

No matter your answer, HAI Group is here to help. We've developed a tool to guide your organization through creating a customized business continuity plan (BCP). Watch the video below for a step-by-step overview, or keep reading to learn more! 

Not every structure fire can be prevented—there’s a reason nearly every town, no matter how small, has a dedicated career or volunteer fire department. But there are proven steps public and affordable housing organizations can take to reduce the risk of fires and ensure residents, visitors, and staff remain safe if a fire does occur.

Poverty conditions don’t invariably lead to more fires but do present certain risk factors that should be addressed on a community-by-community basis, according to a National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) research report published in 2021. The report cites several studies conducted over the last five decades that have made the connection between poverty and elevated fire risk.

Your public or affordable housing organization can't develop an informed response to emerging risks if you don't know what they are. HAI Group has your back.

Keeping information safe and secure is a challenging development for businesses of all sizes over the last few years, including public and affordable housing organizations. Expeditious shifts from in-person to online to hybrid workplaces forced companies to change, or at least reexamine, their cybersecurity practices and protocols, and far too often they weren’t prepared. 

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, now in its 19th year. So why should you—someone working in the housing industry—care about cybersecurity? Public and affordable organizations are being breached by cybercriminals with increasing frequency.