In our final community conversation, Hear From a Host: What is it like Homesharing during Covid?, we gave our community the opportunity to hear from one of our Hosts who has been homesharing during Covid to hear their strategies for healthy co-habitation. In this virtual conversation we had the great pleasure of speaking with Nesterly Host, Brenda! Brenda has been a Host since 2017 and has homeshared with 5 different guests. Hear first hand from Brenda herself about her experience homesharing during the Covid-19 pandemic and why she feels homesharing is the right choice for her!
Following our first community conversation on how we are keeping our community safe, we held our second conversation focussed on the financial, social and practical benefits of homesharing. Survey after survey shows that Americans want to remain in their own homes as they get older. How can older Americans achieve this goal also known as aging in place? In this conversation, Homesharing 101: The Financial, Social and Practical Benefits (Even During Covid!), we look at how one simple solution - homesharing - can increase your monthly income, introduce new friendships in your life and add a helpful hand around the house all to help you stay in your home as long as you’d like.
Highlights from this Community Conversation Include:
1. Hearing from Nesterly Hosts how homesharing has impacting their lives during Covid-19.
2. Learning about how homesharing can be an easy way to make passive income.
3. Seeing how homesharing can be a safe way to maintain social connection.
4. Understanding the practicality of having a set of helpful hands around the home.
In these uncertain times, Nesterly wanted to create an opportunity for our Hosts to connect directly with us and one another digitally. Over the course of a few weeks, we held three Community Conversations where we answered questions, invited our Hosts to share their experiences and discussed our response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In our first Conversation, How Nesterly is Keeping our Community Safe: New Safety Protocols and Precautions for Homesharing during COVID, we addressed one of the most common questions that Nesterly has received over the past few months: “Can I still homeshare during the Covid pandemic?” The answer is yes! The importance of supporting aging-in-place, supplemental income and connections between generations has never felt more necessary.
Highlights from this Community Conversation Include:
1. Updates to Nesterly’s Homesharing Agreement for Covid 19 which now includes CDC-informed health guidelines as well as space to specify all of your house rules.
2. The recommended health and social distancing practices in and out of the home.
3. The new conversation guide to help Hosts set expectations and facilitate meaningful discussions around COVID-19 rules for the home.
4. Harmony which is a Nesterly developed survey that helps assess your daily activities and how they relate to Covid-19 risk level.
At Nesterly, the health and well-being of our community is our top priority. At the same time, in the wake of Covid-19, the importance of aging-in-place, supplemental income and mutual support between generations has never felt more necessary.
As such, here are steps we’re taking to keep our community safe.
New health protocols
Every lease now includes CDC-informed health guidelines as well as space to specify all of your house rules. We’ve also compiled recommended health and social distancing practices in and out of the home.
Updated homesharing resources
It’s important to keep open lines of communication before the start as well as during the homeshare. We’ve updated out housemate interview guide to help set expectations and facilitate meaningful discussions around COVID-19.
Contact-free bookings
Our online profiles and secure messaging system enable you to connect with and get to know your potential housemate, contact-free. When you’re ready to book, everything can be done online, from tailoring and signing your lease to our automatic direct rent transfers designed to limit unnecessary in-person interactions.
Flexible cancellation policies
We know making plans right now can feel especially hard. That’s why we’ve made it easy to alter, cancel, or extend your booked homeshares.
New free delivery service
In partnership with the City of Boston, we launched Good Neighbors, a free service that connects at-risk individuals with volunteers to fulfill basic needs, including no-contact deliveries and friendly check-ins.
We will continue to monitor the situation and follow guidance from the CDC and the World Health Organization. We’ll update you with future developments. In the meantime, we are here to answer your questions and provide the support you need to safely and confidently homeshare.
From June 8 through June 11, 2018 more than 250 of the nation’s mayors met in Boston for USCM’s 86th Annual Meeting. Under the leadership of USCM President Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin and host Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh, mayors discussed a wide variety of priorities that contribute to the overall health of America’s cities and considered and adopted the policy resolutions that guide the advocacy agenda of the organization.
The Mayor’s Matchup: Civic Tech Pitch Competition had emerging companies pitch their ideas to address challenges facing cities in a “Shark Tank”-style forum.
Nesterly Founder & CEO, Noelle Marcus pitched her affordable housing solution to the esteemed panel. To watch the pitch, click here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmlJJXtbLv0&feature=youtu.be&t=48m6s&ab_channel=UnitedStatesConferenceofMayors
Harmony is a quick survey that helps you assess your daily activities in relation to COVID-19 to better understand your risk level when living with others.
We take data privacy seriously. Please refer to our Terms & Services for more information on how we keep your information safe.
The survey is based on data from the Texas Medical Association, a non-profit organization representing over 53,000 physicians. Texas Medical Association’s risk rankings were developed by their COVID-19 Task Force and Committee on Infectious Diseases. You can read more about their chart by visiting this website: https://www.texmed.org/TexasMedicineDetail.aspx?id=54216.
Once you complete the survey, you will receive a full report with a link you can share. It is up to you how you would like to use the Harmony survey. You can keep the results to yourself or share with a potential housemate by making your results visible on your Nesterly profile.
After a long 2020 of protocol changes and safety measures, we are all forced to recalculate our approach to reentering a world that looks very different than before. We hope that this new tool provides you with helpful information to better understand how your choices impact others close to you and vise-versa.
Please note, the purpose of this survey is to help you make decisions about homesharing. It is NOT intended for the diagnosis or treatment of diseases such as COVID-19.
We love receiving your feedback. If you have any thoughts or further questions about the Harmony survey, please take a look at our FAQ or reach out to us at hello@nesterly.com.