Once our Institute is contacted, we begin by assessing a community's problem through discussions with management and residents. This is initially done by telephone. We then ask management to provide us with available data on the community's demographics, housing condition, and crime. Housing plans are also requested, including the site plans of project and the ground floor and typical floor of the buildings. This data is then examined by our staff in and compared with data and conditions in other projects we have worked in.

We then arrange a two- to three-day visit to the community, and with the close participation of management and residents, we tour the sites to examine conditions firsthand. We take color slides as we tour for use later in our visits. Meetings are then scheduled with residents and management, often onsite, to have them discuss the problem as they see it and for them to hear of our analysis of the data and conditions. We then explore various possible remedies together. All this is done in the course of a few days, usually involving two visits.

At the conclusion of this meetings, we show slides to explain the principles of "Defensible Space" and what we have done in other similar communities. We follow this with the slides of their community taken earlier, and explain how the principles used elsewhere might be applied here. We then ask management and residents whether they think such solutions would be useful to their community, and whether they would be prepared to assume the responsibilities that come with the reassignment and control of grounds, etc. Defensible Space technology only works if residents are willing to adopt it.