Experience with Affordable Housing Tax Credit, Low/Moderate Income Tenants and Scattered Site Housing.

Hallmark has managed affordable housing since its inception. We have been involved in all areas of management, including management of physical plants, tenant certification occupancy, accounting/bookkeeping, and maintenance/central purchasing and field operations. Hallmark currently manages 1005 units of affordable housing and market properties.

Our management experience consists of administration, property management, building rehabilitation, tenant selection and relocation, lease-up and move-in inspections, processing evictions and maintaining all required records, maintaining general partnership ledgers and financial statements for government audits. Our Company employs a complete property management staff of over forty (40) individuals, including maintenance persons, groundskeepers, custodians, accountants/bookkeepers and administrative staff. We have all the needed in-house capability to handle all aspects of property management services.

Because Hallmark has vast experience in the management of central city properties, it has developed a special expertise in the physical maintenance and social economic problems that interact and impact such developments. Marketing, preventative and routine maintenance as well as tenant relations, represent the foundation of quality management.

Through its experience, it has become evident that single-family new construction homes with affordable rents practically "rent" themselves. Therefore, when one has an excellent product to market and the demand for such products is strong, marketing is simplified. Hence, Hallmark seldom needs to place ads for these types of developments. Adequate publicity surrounding the awarding of an Affordable Housing Tax Credit usually circulates throughout the service area of the CDC, thus assuring that area residents know about its availability before the first house is built and waiting lists are common.

However, to assure that these developments benefit all area residents, an affirmative fair housing marketing campaign will be conducted to attract person least likely to apply for housing located in the central city.

To encourage applicants of Caucasian, Hispanic, American Indian, Pacific Islander and Arab Americans heritage, a goal of achieving 10% racial diversity amongst the occupancy population is set. To achieve this goal, the following strategies are implemented: ads are placed in the areas primary newspaper and other ethnic newspapers. Flyers are circulated to a number of organizations serving this population, including the Public Health Authority, area churches, the County’s Department of Human Services, the local Urban League, Hispanic organizations and other area businesses and institutions.

Careful screening of prospective residents is crucial to the success of any project. Hallmark maintains an excellent tenant screening and selection policy, which it believes, is the cornerstone of its management operations. Hallmark’s screening procedures include verifying the eligibility of all applicants by income and household size, investigating the credit history of all applicants, securing police reports and conducting home visits.

Since initial lease-up of a development is a time-consuming activity, hallmark charges a fee for this work.

Preventative and routine maintenance is essential to sound management graces. Preventative maintenance begins with designing and building the best possible structure and by developing plans and instituting procedures governing the performance of routine servicing of mechanical systems, such as heating, air conditioning, and plumbing.

To achieve tenant satisfaction and retention, rapid response to requests for routine services is vital. Routine participation in education and training seminars by Hallmark’s maintenance personnel are scheduled to keep them current on the latest products, equipment and techniques. Skilled staff provides another key to low tenant turnover as well as few and short-duration vacancies.

Frequent inspections of properties assure that no minor repair problem becomes a major expense. All Hallmark managers are trained in conducting site inspections with special emphasis on identifying potential repair/maintenance items.

Since Hallmark’s motto is "Customer Satisfaction", Hallmark prides itself on bringing to all of its management properties a "humanitarian" component in its tenant relation’s procedures. Two-way communication is vital to a successful property management program. Unless residents and management work together as a team, communication cannot occur. Thus, Hallmark instills in its staff philosophies that all persons must be treated with dignity, respect, and must possess an understanding of human needs.

When individual tenant problems arise, a number of methods are used to communicate with a tenant household: individually written notifications, provisions for one on one meetings, general notices and in-home visits. Written notification of lease violations is always given providing specifics such as date and time of the alleged infraction along with a reference to the particular section of the lease that may have been violated. Opportunity is always provided (if the allegation is determined to be true) for the resident to correct the problem.

All individually written notices contain an invitation for the tenant to call to set up a one on one meeting to discuss the alleged lease violation in person. In most cases, where the tenant has exhibited himself/herself to be a responsible person, these individual sessions usually result in improved relations between residents and management.

General notices are periodically distributed when matters that affect the entire complex must be brought to residents’ attention. Again, management always provides an opportunity for it to be questioned concerning any new directive or change affecting the tenant population.

Firm, but fair property maintenance and behavior standards are established, shared with the residents and enforced. All violations are documented and tracked in the resident’s files. When it is necessary to initiate eviction action against a resident (due the nonpayment of rent, tenant abuse or vandalism), two-way communications is sought to ascertain whether a resident is willing to correct past practices. When sincere commitments are made and followed up by responsible action, management will work with the resident to avoid eviction.