It’s less about what occurs, and more about how you react to what occurs. While I’m sure that I’m poorly paraphrasing some Greek philosopher, this is exactly how this story played out. If not for a culture at Outpost Club predicated on agility and wanting to help our community - both within our houses and the community at-large - we may not have been able to navigate this crisis logistically or financially, or respond in the way that we did.

The beginning of our story probably followed a similar trajectory to that of most other coliving spaces. When it became abundantly clear that COVID-19 was going to become a daily fact of life in the US, our customer service team spent more time processing cancelled bookings than they did anything else. The realisations came one after another: first were our immunocompromised members, who preemptively left New York City. Then came our international members, who realised there might be a closing window of time in which they could re-enter their home country. Then came those who were laid off and furloughed, whose new economic reality came as a slow wave over the preceding weeks. Our constant communication to our members about the steps we were taking to ensure their safety was not enough for many of our members to feel comfortable, let alone remain in the major cities in which we operate. Nothing we could have said would have changed these realities.

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In addition to the cancellations, there were many members who wanted to stay, but had a reduced income. We allowed many of these members to move into less expensive rooms across our portfolio and made payment plans for those whose income was affected. Looking back, even this small amount of flexibility was something only a coliving provider could provide with ease; this type of transfer from one room to another would be too logistically, legally and financially cumbersome for many property owners and their tenants who rent full unfurnished units. While limited by our own economic reality, we did as much as we could to mitigate the financial burden many of our members faced, I’m sure many of them suffered, as did we, in those weeks in March and April.

As our cash flow slowed down and our vacancies grew, our realities set in as well. We worked with other coliving providers, pleading to property owners that there are ways we can make it through this together. While we were doing everything we could to weather the storm, at some points I just felt like we were going through the motions, that we were fighting the inevitable, and after speaking with others on our team, some colleagues felt the same. I don’t mean to sound defeatist; we are still operating, many of our members stayed, and our bookings are starting to recover. But the fact of the matter was that we needed to deal with vacancies produced by this exodus from San Francisco, New York and Jersey City.

At some point during the wave of cancellations, someone on our team started to realise there was still one group of people coming to New York: Nurses. On Monday, March 30th, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called on health-care workers across the United States to travel to New York to help the state battle the worst coronavirus outbreak in the nation. As we started to seriously consider if we could house nurses, there were many tough questions to answer. How would we ensure the safety of our existing members? How would we ensure our existing members felt safe? Which houses would be most appealing to nurses? Would they even choose Outpost Club if given the chance?

‘Looking back, even this small amount of flexibility was something only a coliving provider could provide with ease; this type of transfer from one room to another would be too logistically, legally and financially cumbersome for many property owners and their tenants who rent full unfurnished units.’

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As these questions and ideas percolated, we started making preparations. We started choosing which vacant units would be safest for nurses and our members, coming up with pricing they could actually afford, notifying our members about their arrival, communicating to current members how they would remain safe, notifying the public about the initiative and sending this initiative through all our channels and to all our partners. It was finally decided that we would do everything in our effort to help nurses in any way we could. Sergii Starostin, our CEO, said, “Our government was saying, ‘Help, we cannot do this alone,’ so we did what we could to help. We’re not a central government; we don’t have the resources to fully prepare for a once-in-a-lifetime event. While we had no choice but to be reactive toward the pandemic, we still had the chance to be proactive toward the coming economic fallout”.

But just “helping nurses’’ was not as smooth as we anticipated. Many nurses were trying to choose from hundreds of housing opportunities, some free.

We received many bookings followed by immediate cancellations. Since many bookings were taking place so quickly, some nurses didn’t fully understand what they were signing up for and there were misaligned expectations. We pride ourselves on our agility, always stating to potential clients, “We can move as quickly as you do. If you would like to move in tomorrow, here’s what you’ll need to do, and we’ll have someone meet you at the door”. This was now being put to the test. New York has started to recover from the worst of the pandemic, and as of this publication’s release, Outpost Club has housed over 50 nurses from all over the country, and we are still receiving a small number of bookings from hospitals and nurse staffing agencies, as well as individuals coming directly to us.

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Looking back on the last two-and-a-half months, I think what stands out the most about our actions was the duality of purpose. While it was the right thing to do, it was the smart thing to do, both economically and from a public relations perspective. We had some positive news coverage, and there was even one article juxtaposing our initiative alongside landlords who behaved unethically in order to “save themselves.” This good PR came from units that would have otherwise sat empty during these months.

Looking forward, Outpost Club will continue to strive toward being a part of the conversation surrounding access to housing, not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it’s what our customers want. Residential, urban coliving has its roots in being a solution for workforce housing, and this is just the most recent iteration. By adopting this mindset during unexpected events, we will be able to focus more on how to react, and less on what occurs.