the importance of home

LETTER FROM THE CEO

the importance of home

As I reflect on the many ways that 2020 was a year of unprecedented challenge for our residents, our associates and our company, I am reminded of “The Importance of Home.” While we all know the key role a home plays in our lives, this past year has reminded us, in unimaginable ways, just how important home is as a place of comfort, security and refuge. The work that we do at Gables Residential to provide and maintain high-quality homes for our residents took on elevated significance during these challenging times. Gables’ core operating principle is “Taking Care of the Way You Live.” Ensuring that our communities offer an exceptional residential experience was never more critical than last year, when most of our residents spent more time than ever in their homes.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Gables recognized the uncertainty of the times and the potential for negative impacts on our residents. We proactively took action to assist our residents to reduce stress, maximize flexibility and create pathways to minimize financial implications. Some of the steps we took included waiving late fees, creating rent payment plans, holding rental rates flat for several months and connecting residents with local community support services. Our onsite teams maintained communication with all of our residents to understand their issues and concerns. We wanted our residents to know that we understood the importance of their home to them. These additional actions added to an already full roster of ongoing daily responsibilities for Gables’ associates.

I want to express a deep, heartfelt thank you to all of Gables’ associates for their hard work, grace, resilience and perseverance during ever-changing work policies and conditions. While faced with daily challenges and changes at home, in our communities and at work, our associates worked together and found ways to keep our communities open and running; took care of critical service needs; and even developed creative ways to keep our residents engaged with virtual activities and occasional surprise deliveries. They perfected skills, like providing online and self-guided community tours, and were able to implement ever-changing policies and procedures related to personal interactions and enhanced cleaning procedures — all designed to keep our associates and residents as safe as possible. Our corporate associates quickly adapted to a new work

letter from the ceo

environment from home or, later in the year, to being back in the office on some days, with new work policies and less direct personal contact.

We have an outstanding team of associates, and we want you and them to know how vital they are to our mission. Throughout this report, we are featuring the thoughts and experiences of our Gables associates. There are “Scenes and Sentiments” with comments about their thoughts and reactions to the year. Another highlight is personal stories about how associates gave back to their communities during a company-sponsored individual day of service. We have also included many photographs of our associates doing what they do best: “Taking Care of the Way You Live.”

I am pleased to report that Gables was able to continue its focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) activities in 2020. We earned Energy Star certifications on 23% of our stabilized communities and were awarded Fitwel certifications on five communities. We completed LED lighting retrofits in 2020 that replaced more than 1,500 fixtures in parking garages and outdoor areas and identified additional LED retrofit projects at eight communities that will be installed in 2021. We also improved the quality and timeliness of information provided to our communities that helps them identify ways to operate more sustainably, including identifying water leaks and excessive energy usage. Most importantly, our Sustainability Council established working groups to research and identify new corporate sustainability goals, along with action plans for implementation, that will take us to 2030. You can read about these new goals in this report.

As our world continues to make strides back to “normalcy,” Gables continues to move forward with a focus on excellence in all of our actions, including a continuing commitment to being a good corporate citizen in all that we do. I am so proud of all of the efforts of the Gables team during 2020, and I appreciate all that they do for our company and our residents.

Susan M. Ansel President & CEO