How to frame the affordable housing conversation
Jonathan Knopf
Executive Director for Programs
(As explained by Homer.)
📚 Know your facts and history
🔨 Focus on solutions
📣 Rethink how you talk about housing (then think again)
Your home is affordable if you pay no more than 30 percent of your gross income on housing costs.
Your home is affordable if it is subsidized by a public program to reduce your housing costs.
Your home is affordable if you feel it is safe, secure, healthy, and within your budget.
📈 Rising interest rates
💲 Labor and material costs
🚧 Restrictive land use policies
📉 Lagging wages
👷 Workforce shortages
🏢 Private equity acquisitions
Accelerating prices reflect lack of supply
across the spectrum.
Long-term shifts in federal policy place
increasing responsibilities on states and local communities.
It’s hard to plan for the future when
we’re still solving the past.
Increase supply:
Manage demand:
🏡 Housing is personal
🤝 Housing isn’t partisan (usually)
🧠 Housing breaks people’s brains
Everyone thinks
they’re an expert…
Frames are sets of choices about how information is presented. Effective framing requires:
A message backfires when it reinforces the audience’s existing biases, rather than changing them…
…even when contradictory evidence is provided.
John and Mary need our help. They are trying to overcome addiction and homelessness. They need an affordable home and counseling support.
They should stop making poor decisions. Don’t ask me to pay for their mistakes.
I feel bad for them, but it’s got nothing to do with me. It’s not my responsibility to solve their problems.
Direct thinking away from personal decision-making to consequences faced by whole community. Orient benefits to all of us.
Describe the roles and relationships among government, private market, and citizens.
Connect the facts you may take for granted so your audience doesn’t fill in their own blanks with misleading information.
End explanations with clear, actionable remedies to keep focus on how we can fix our problems.
Be prepared for wherever the conversation goes…
💡 Use familiar places, terms, and concepts
👪 Name the players and their roles in the system
📈 Use data as ingredients, not the full dish
🔄 Connect to larger problems that affect everyone
“Affordable” is just the start of the conversation
Take advantage of increasing attention on housing issues
We’re making more progress than you might think
…but there’s much more to do!
We’re here to help:
jonathan@housingforwardva.org
housingforwardva.org
@housingforwardva
@housingforwardva
@housingfwdva
SAW Housing Summit | October 11, 2023