PART 1: STARTING

Connect with Building Management

To start or sustain an aging in place initiative, it is important to gain the support of the management in your building, as well as any other resident-run groups that have similar mandates. This might be a co-op board, a condominium board, property managers, tenants association or social committee. Getting the support of these stakeholders is important to ensure that your efforts will be supported, and more importantly, that they are not actively blocked or seen as stepping on any toes. These groups may even want to actively contribute to the initiative! You’ll never know until you ask.

How and why to connect with stakeholders

Ensuring the support of building management is key. If your building has a high number of older residents, they will likely welcome your initiative, as it will increase support for tenants and relieve some pressure on front desk staff who may be getting a lot of requests for help.

The two areas of support that are most useful to request from building management are 1) use of available community spaces for meetings and community events, and 2) use of existing communications channels, including community boards and building-wide email lists.

Explore what type of management team exists in your building. Once you figure out who might be responsible for managing common areas and building-wide communications, engage them in a conversation. This could be done informally via email or face-to-face. The purpose of this conversation is to share what you plan to do with the aging in place initiative, and see if building management will be able to lend their support or even act as a project partner. This is where your purpose statement will come in handy!

Making contact

If building management has agreed to support the initiative, you may want to make it official through a formal Letter of Support. Below is a sample that you can use as a starting point.