Coronavirus: How Havelock House has prepared for COVID-19

Close living quarters make social distancing very tough.

No where is this more apparent than in Havelock House on Northbourne Avenue where 101 people live.

"It's a petri dish, I say that in jest but effectively it's true. It's very close living," Havelock Housing Association chief executive Andrew Rowe said.

"The risk is high. When it arises it will arrive with some enthusiasm and vengeance."

Havelock House is social housing and provides long-term accommodation for low-income individuals.

Mr Rowe said the association had to make a range of preparations over the past few weeks.

"We've been trying to stock a food pantry so food staples, we have a stock here that we can support our residents in Havelock House," he said.

"They are more vulnerable to empty shelves so we have built a full food pantry.

"We have issued cleaning packs, buckets, mops and detergents, and everything like that to every unit.

"We issued personal hygiene products weeks ago, we've put through bulk hand sanitiser to everyone."

Following restrictions, Havelock House also stopped social gatherings.

"We have stopped all of our community development initiatives so we had some chat rooms here every week and that was an important part of our information exchange until a couple of weeks ago," he said.

But the organisation has also had to make preparations about what would happen if one of its residents contracted COVID-19.

"We are preparing a property we have in Hackett, which is a five-bedroom house to have that as a quarantine but there is challenges, even in that," Mr Rowe said.

"So one is making sure residents tell us and identify when they are either at risk or become symptomatic, but then how do we get them their safety and keep the safety of my team and particularly on the demand of the ambulance service.

"Access to testing is a big one so getting them to a testing station is going to be nigh on impossible."

Properties rented through Havelock House are income-based and are usually rented at 25 per cent of a person's fortnightly income.

It comes all users of ACT government community properties have been given full rent relief for six months, Havelock House is included in this, as well as other properties the association rents from the government.

Havelock Housing Association has about 200 properties and 400 tenants.

"That allows us to offer rent relief to anyone who is struggling or has lost their jobs," Mr Rowe said.

"It's not an automatic pass through but the intention is to allow us to respond as we need to.

"It allows us to compensate with other costs we are incurring in the response."

Our COVID-19 news articles relating to public health and safety are free for anyone to access. However, we depend on subscription revenue to support our journalism. If you are able, please subscribe here. If you are already a subscriber, thank you for your support. If you're looking to stay up to date on COVID-19, you can also sign up for our twice-daily digest here.