Photo By Eric Pilgrim | Historic Community Assistant Manager Lori Thomas delivers a furnace filter to a Knox...... read more read more
FORT KNOX, Ky. — Housing officials at Knox Hills have turned their self-help provision into an encouraging way for residents to take greater ownership of maintaining their homes.
Katie Huff, director of property management for Knox Hills, said the company has always provided residents with certain opportunities to perform minor do-it-yourself repairs and replacements to their homes. Now they’ve made it easier.
“To ensure we are practicing safe social distancing for both our team and residents; we now offer a delivery service for self-help items,” said Huff. “Residents can simply contact their community office and provide a list of the items they need, and we will deliver them right to their doorstep.”
Some of the routine maintenance includes replacing light bulbs, air filters and batteries in the smoke detectors, and installing new blind slats.
Huff said many residents have jumped on board with the idea of performing their own repairs, even expanding on it.
“As the stay-at-home orders were implemented, it has provided residents with an opportunity to tackle some of those minor to-do items in their home,” said Huff. “Our staff has also seen an increase in requests for permission to paint the interior of their homes and for grass seed and mulch to spruce up their yards.”
The driving force behind the changes has been the effect of COVID-19 on social distancing and protective measures, according to Huff. As a result, they implemented additional measures like pausing routine work orders to ensure the safety of the residents and their employees.
Not every neighborhood can participate in the self-help feature the same, said Huff. For instance, those who live in the Historic District have built-in restrictions that must be followed to ensure preservation of the residences.
“We enjoy working with our residents to ensure their house feels like a home,” said Huff. “Residents are encouraged to reach out to their community office to discuss any alterations they would like to make such as paint color, shelving and more prior to making any changes.”
Whatever changes and upgrades are agreed upon, however, the cost for all of it remains fixed. Within a limited capacity, said Huff, items received through the self-help program are free for residents.
Temporarily pausing routine work orders has given them the opportunity to focus on emergency work orders and assist in delivering self-help items to the residents. Huff said the relaxing of restrictions, which began May 18, comes at the right time.
“We are proud to have been able to continue providing essential-level services to our residents during these challenging times and will now look toward more normalized operations, to include beginning stages of reintegrating our routine service orders back into our maintenance schedules.”
Once the installation returns to some semblance of normal life back under Health Protection Level Bravo, the delivery service will discontinue and residents will again need to request items and pick them up at community offices. However, Knox Hills will remain focused on meeting its customers’ needs, said Huff.
“We are still here for them,” said Huff, “and offering the self-help program delivery service is one way we have been able to achieve this.”
| Date Taken: | 05.19.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 05.19.2020 15:12 |
| Story ID: | 370341 |
| Location: | FORT KNOX, KY, US |
| Web Views: | 253 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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