Six Steps to Building Community Support for Affordable Housing and Services Michael Allen Relman

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Six Steps to Building Community Support for
Affordable Housing and ServicesMichael
AllenRelman Dane, PLLCNational Alliance to
End HomelessnessJuly 11, 2007
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Contact Information

• Michael Allen
• Relman Dane, PLLC
• 1225 19th Street, N.W., Suite 600
• Washington, D.C.  20036-2456
• 202/728-1888, ext. 114
• FAX  [phone]
• E-mail mallen_at_relmanlaw.com
• Website www.relmanlaw.com

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Confronting Common NIMBY Concerns
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Defining NIMBYism

• Communities have said it many times We dont
  oppose housing for poor people. We just think it
  ought to be located somewhere else.
• This phenomenon, often described as NIMBYism
  (deriving from the acronym, Not In My Back
  Yard), appears to be nearly universal, occurring
  with different variations on a common theme in
  urban, suburban and rural areas from coast to
  coast.

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WHAT YOU ARE LIKELY TO HEAR

• We have worked all our lives to buy this house.
  Now you want to come in here with this affordable
  housing and rob us of our lifes savings.
• No one in his right mind would ever buy my house
  now that a group home is next door.
• My brother-in-law is a real estate agent. He
  says that it will take much longer to sell my
  house, and that I wont get my investment back
  out of it now that there are apartments going up
  down the block.
• We have enough apartments in this town already.
  We ought to be encouraging single-family home
  ownership, which will help protect the value of
  our homes.

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MOST COMMON OPPOSITION CONCERNS

• While extensive research over more than 25 years
  has disproved these concerns, they are still
  raised anew in almost every conflict over
  affordable housing
• Property values
• Crime rates
• Character of the neighborhood will change
• Affordable housing is badly designed and cheaply
  built and will be unattractive
• Affordable housing contributes to overcrowding of
  public schools

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Property Values Research Findings

• A...single-family home values in the neighborhood
  of affordable housing projects are not
  adversely affected by their proximity to those
  projects. Indeed, in some cases, home values are
  actually higher the nearer the home is to such a
  project.
• Paul M. Cummings and John D. Landis,
  Relationships between Affordable Housing
  Developments and Neighboring Property Values,
  (Univ. of California at Berkeley, Sept. 1993)

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Crime and Affordable Housing Research Findings

• There is no evidence of an increase in crime
  resulting from the introduction of affordable
  housing into a neighborhood. In fact, much of the
  affordable housing now being developed in inner
  cities and older neighborhoods replaces
  broken-down and crime-ridden buildings and can
  serve to reduce the neighborhood crime rate
• Urban Institute, The Impacts of Supportive
  Housing on Neighborhoods and Neighbors (April
  2000).

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Character of the Neighborhood

• If an affordable housing project can locate by
  right on a particular parcel, the uneasiness of
  neighbors cannot be an obstacle to such a use.
  If variances are routinely granted for other uses
  but withheld for affordable housing, such
  practices might be challenged if they
  discriminate on the basis of race, national
  origin or disability.

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Affordable Housing and Design

• The most prestigious architectural award in the
  nationthe American Institute of Architects
  National Honor Awardhas been won by affordable
  housing developments.
• HomeBase, Building Inclusive Community (1996)

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Affordable Housing and Schools Research Findings

• According to the Census Bureau's current
  population survey in 1998, 20 of all occupied
  apartments had one or more school-aged children,
  compared to 33 of owner-occupied single-family
  homes. The average apartment household had 0.3
  children, while single-family homes had 0.6
  children.
• National Multi Housing Council, Debunking the
  Homeownership Myth (September 1998)

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Building Local Support The Six Step Process
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Step One Meet to Develop Strategy in Five Areas

• Political Support
• Public Support
• Community Issues
• Legal Rights
• Public Relations    

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Step One Planning

• Meet and Assess
• Local governments current knowledge of and
  support for your organizations work, and the
  current proposal.
• Full analysis of the neighborhood surrounding the
  proposed site
• Likely concerns neighbors might have and
  potential for organized opposition
• Potential legal issues
• The medias view of your work and clients.

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Step Two Political Strategy

• Get to know your local government players and
  policies.
• Find key leaders in every community to find
  them always ask Who else should I talk with
  about this?
• Identify solid supporters, committed opponents,
  and uncertain votes.
• If the vote were taken tonight, do you know who
  would vote for and against your proposal?
• Determine education, advocacy efforts needed to
  keep supporters, neutralize opponents, win
  uncertain votes.

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Step Three Building Public Support

• Ensure active, vocal community support
• Develop solid support before contacting potential
  opponents.
• Dont spend all your time responding to
  opponents.
• Identify and prioritize actual and potential
  supporters
• Plan recruitment of supporters and what you want
  them to do
• Organize and support your allies with background
  information, housing tours and up-to-date
  information.
• Mobilize supporters at critical points (e.g.
  using a database and fax sheets.)
• Keep them informed and encouraged.

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Step Four Dealing with Community Issues

• Notification and community out-reach
• Consider alternative methods for community
  outreach (e.g. door-to-door canvassing,
  open-house forums or small house meetings)
  instead of the large open community meetings.
• Only when you understand why a person opposes,
  can you select the best response.
• Find out the probable basis of their concerns
  before fashioning a response (e.g.
  misinformation, fears about impacts, expectation
  to participate, prejudice, or issues unrelated to
  your proposal.)

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Step Five Legal Strategy

• Identify your organizations and prospective
  tenants legal rights and learn how to spot
  potential legal violations.
• If your proposal is likely to encounter illegal
  discrimination or raise complex legal issues,
  contact legal assistance immediately to learn
  what you should do now to protect your rights,
  and how and when to get further legal assistance.
•  

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Step Six Public Relations Strategy

• Decide if you want to generate or merely respond
• Designate and prepare a spokesperson
• Develop your message(s) and alternative stories
  for your target audiences (e.g. decision-makers).
• Prepare brief, easily-faxable, fact sheets
• Invite reporters for a tour of your existing
  facilities and to meet your staff and clients.
• Follow-up on any coverage you receive with thank
  yous and corrections.
• Develop on-going relationships with media

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Case Study Engaging the Community

• Pine Street Inn (PSI) provides street outreach,
  emergency shelter, health care, job training, and
  housing to 1,300 Bostonians every day. It
  consciously involves neighbors prior to opening
  permanent supportive housing for homeless people.
  
• In early 1993 PSI learned that a large duplex on
  Rockwell Street was being offered for sale. PSI
  decided to buy and renovate the building to
  provide ten single room occupancy (SRO) units and
  an on-site managers apartment.

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Pine Street Inn

• Converting the building to an SRO required zoning
  relief. The citys planning staff said that
  couldnt be granted without a public hearing. But
  PSI knew that a public hearing was often a method
  of deflecting political fallout from the planning
  commissioners and city council members onto the
  housing provider, and that neighbors had begun to
  organize against the project within days of its
  announcement.

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Pine Street Inn

• PSI put together a plan for getting political
  support. It focused on elected officials and
  neighborhood residents. PSI provided tours of the
  proposed site, and subsequently made a
  presentation to the entire neighborhood
  organization.

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Pine Street Inn

• Prior to the public hearing, PSI staff conducted
  intensive door-to-door canvassing on and near
  Rockwell Street, in order to
• (1) meet the majority of residents and explain
  the project
• (2) answer questions about all aspects of the
  project and
• (3) determine the extent of initial opposition.
• This work put many neighbors concerns to rest,
  and actually produced a number of supporters. The
  neighborhood organization even wrote a strong
  letter of support.

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Pine Street Inn

• After a nine month effort, the project received
  all necessary approvals and construction began.
  The facility welcomed its first residents in
  early 1995. The building is widely recognized as
  the best-kept on the block, helping to increase
  property values of surrounding homes.
• See www.pinestreetinn.org

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Best Practices

• Things Local Governments Can Do To Comply with
  Civil Rights Laws and Create an Environment More
  Conducive to the Development of Affordable
  Housing

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HOUSING FRIENDLY LAND USE POLICIES

• Austin, Texas SMART Housing, which works with
  developers to ensure submissions that respond to
  legitimate community concerns about land use
  impacts and which explicitly rejects extraneous
  grounds of opposition. By getting the developer
  and the neighbors at the same table early in the
  process, the staff is able to identify and deal
  with legitimate land use issues, and it does so
  very quickly. Its internal goal is to have a
  zoning application on the docket of City Council
  for final action within 45 days after it is
  filed.

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HOUSING FRIENDLY LAND USE POLICIES

• Portland, Oregon The Office of Neighborhood
  Involvement has instituted the Community
  Residential Siting Program (CRSP), which is
  designed to be a centralized point of information
  and referral to deal with questions and concerns
  around the siting of residential social services
  as well as provide mediation and facilitation
  services for groups in conflict.

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HOUSING FRIENDLY LAND USE POLICIES

• Montgomery County, Maryland The Moderately
  Priced Dwelling Unit (MPDU) program is a form of
  inclusionary zoning which rewards developers with
  additional density and requires them to
  incorporate moderately priced units in every new
  development of 50 or more units, reserving to the
  county housing authority the first right of
  purchase of rental units.

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HOUSING FRIENDLY LAND USE POLICIES

• In 1998, the New Jersey Department of Human
  Services launched a public education program to
  increase public awareness about people with
  disabilities and the kinds of community living
  arrangements in which they reside. Under the
  program, called Good Neighbors, Community Living
  for People with Disabilities, DHS
  representatives reach out to municipal officials,
  private organizations and New Jersey residents to
  provide information and to answer their
  questions, in hopes of achieving broader public
  acceptance and accommodations for people with
  disabilities.

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HOUSING FRIENDLY LAND USE POLICIES

• The City of Rochester and surrounding
  jurisdictions won a HUD Blue Ribbon award in
  1999 for developing a Fair Housing Action Plan
  designed to overcome impediments to fair housing
  experienced by low-income people of color,
  families with children and people with
  disabilities.
• The significance of these efforts is that they
  were accomplished through a unique
  intergovernmental cooperation and extensive
  public/private partnership it is metropolitan in
  scope there has been significant public
  involvement and there is a commitment to
  implementation.

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Fair Share Housing Programs

• While the effort to enact fair share
  legislation has taken a unique path in each of
  the following jurisdictions, the impetus has
  common roots. Spurred by a sense that people of
  color and people with low-incomes were
  systemically excluded from affordable housing
  opportunities and that, left to its own devices,
  the private market would continue to foster
  segregated communities, the civil rights and
  affordable housing advocacy communities coalesced
  behind reform efforts.

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Massachusetts

• Statewide legislation in Massachusetts, has been
  credited with producing 25,000 affordable housing
  units since its passage in 1969.
• The statute sets a goal that each city and town
  should have at least 10 percent of its housing
  stock defined as affordable or subsidized
  housing. If an affordable housing proposal were
  denied in a town with less than 10 percent, the
  developer could appeal the decision at the state
  level to the Housing Appeals Committee.

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New Jersey

• New Jerseys Mount Laurel doctrine, requires all
  New Jersey municipalities to zone for their fair
  share of affordable housing.
• In the most densely populated state in the
  nation, the mandate was initially seen as a way
  to stem the tide of increasing racial and
  economic segregation.
• Through nearly 30 years of living under the state
  policy, thousands of units have been built for
  people who could not afford market rate housing.
  
• Much of that housing has been built because of
  the builders remedy, which provides that
  developers can bypass significant zoning and land
  use approvals in cities and towns that do not
  have their fair share of affordable housing.

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California

• Every city and county in California must adopt a
  comprehensive general plan to govern its land
  use and planning decisions. All planning and
  development actions must be consistent with the
  general plan. The general plan must contain 7
  elements, including a housing element. The
  housing element must make adequate provision for
  the housing needs of all economic segments of the
  community.

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For More Information

• Massachusetts anti-snob zoning law Aaron
  Gornstein, Executive Director, Citizens Housing
  and Planning Association, 18 Tremont Street,
  Suite 401, Boston, MA 02108.  Phone/TTY
  617-742-0820.  E-mail aarong_at_chapa.org
• New Jersey Mount Laurel doctrine Susan Bass
  Levin, Chairman, Council on Affordable Housing,
  101 South Broad Street, P.O. Box 813, Trenton, NJ
  08625. Telephone [phone]. Website
  http//www.state.nj.us/dca/coah/
• California Housing Element Law Diane
  Spaulding, Executive Director, Non-Profit Housing
  Association of Northern California, 369 Pine
  Street, Suite 350, San Francisco, CA 94104.
  Telephone [phone]. Michael Rawson,
  California Affordable Housing Law Project of the
  Public Interest Law Project, 449 15th Street,
  Suite 301, Oakland, CA 94612. Telephone (510)
  891-9794, ext. 145

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For More Information

• Montgomery County Moderately Priced Dwelling
  Unit program Eric B. Larsen, MPDU Coordinator,
  Montgomery County Department of Housing and
  Community Affairs, Phone [phone]. E-mail
  eric.larsen_at_co.mo.md.us . Website
  http//hca.emontgomery.org/Housing/MPDU/summary.ht
  m
• Austin S.M.A.R.T. Housing Stuart Hersh,
  Neighborhood Housing and Conservation Department,
  City of Austin. Telephone [phone]. E-mail
  stuart.hersh_at_ci.austin.tx.us . Karen Paup,
  Co-Director, Texas Low Income Housing Information
  Service, 508 Powell Street Austin, TX 78703-5122.
  Telephone [phone].
• Portland Community Residential Siting Program
  Eric King Coordinator, Referrals and Information
  Services, , City of Portland Office of
  Neighborhood Involvement, City Hall, 1221 SW
  Fourth Avenue, Room 110, Portland, Oregon 97204.
  Telephone [phone]

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For More Information

• New Jersey Good Neighbors Program Margaret
  Sabin, Office of Public Affairs, New Jersey
  Department of Human Services, 240 West State
  Street, P.O. Box 700, Trenton, NJ 08625.
  Telephone [phone]. E-Mail
  mesabin_at_dhs.state.nj.us
• Rochester Fair Housing Planning Thomas R.
  Argust, Commissioner, Department of Community
  Development , City Hall, Room 125-B, 30 Church
  Street. Rochester, NY 14614 . Telephone
  716/428-6550

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Ten Tips to Ensure Fair Zoning and Land Use
Hearings

• Establish a maximum time frame for the hearing in
  advance and enforce it
• Consider recording the hearing, through tape
  recording or other mechanism
• Arrange for a presentation from the developer
  arrange for a presentation from planning staff or
  other official to set forth a staff
  recommendation and any objective issues that must
  be addressed

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Ten Tips to Ensure Fair Zoning and Land Use
Hearings

• Identify one person who will manage the meeting
• Before the hearing begins, remind all
  participants to listen respectfully, to remain
  polite, not to interrupt others, or engage in
  cross talk.
• Maintain an official sign in sheet that includes
  the name, address and phone number for each
  speaker. Call speakers in order
• Establish an order for speakers. The order may
  be in order of sign in, or sign in may be divided
  into speakers who are pro and con the proposed
  action and the speakers may alternate.

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Ten Tips to Ensure Fair Zoning and Land Use
Hearings

• Limit the amount of time each speaker may take
  and announce that amount of time on the sign in
  sheet. Enforce it.
• If any speaker makes discriminatory remarks the
  speaker should caution them and the audience
  about making discriminatory remarks. If any
  speaker makes profane or foul remarks, stop the
  speaker, and caution them and the audience about
  making such remarks
• Consider taking a vote or making a decision at
  another meeting to avoid demonstrations from the
  audience about an unpopular decision

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Finding and mobilizing research and advocacy
resources
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NIMBY Resources

• Building Better Communities Network (information
  clearinghouse and communication forum dedicated
  to building inclusive communities and to
  successfully siting affordable housing and
  community services.).
• http//www.bettercommunities.org/
•  
•  

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NIMBY Resources (contd)

• Addressing Community Opposition to Affordable
  Housing Development A Fair Housing Toolkit,
  available at http//content.knowledgeplex.org/kp2/
  cache/documents/68549.pdf

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NIMBY Resources (contd)

• Corporation for Supportive Housing www.csh.org
• Fair Housing The Siting of Group Homes for
  People with Disabilities and Children (National
  League of Cities, 2000)(Local Officials Guide
  series) http//www.bazelon.org/cpfha/1group_h
  omes.pdf

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NIMBY Resources (contd)

• Group Homes, Local Land Use, and the Fair Housing
  Act (Joint Statement of the Department of Justice
  and the Department of Housing and Urban
  Development, 1999)
• http//www.usdoj.gov/crt/housing/final8_1.htm
• Why Not in Our Back Yard? 45 Planning
  Commissioners Journal 4 (Winter 2002), available
  at http//www.bazelon.org/issues/housing/moreresou
  rces/articles/Why-Not-In-Our-Back-Yard.pdf

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NIMBY Resources (contd)

• The NIMBY Report
• (The NIMBY Report supports inclusive communities
  by sharing news of the NIMBY syndrome and efforts
  to overcome it. Published for nearly 10 years by
  the American Friends Service Committee, it is now
  published by the National Low Income Housing
  Coalition, in collaboration with the Building
  Better Communities Network. http//www.bettercommu
  nities.org

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NIMBY Resources (contd)

• Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
• (Organization and website dedicated to
  enforcement of civil and constitutional rights of
  people with disabilities)
• http//www.bazelon.org
• What Fair Housing Means for People with
  Disabilities
• Digest of Cases and Other Resources on Fair
  Housing for People with Disabilities

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NIMBY Resources (contd)

• No Room for the Inn A Report on Local Opposition
  to Housing and Social Services Facilities For
  Homeless People in 36 United States Cities
  (National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty,
  1995)
• Building Inclusive Community Tools to Create
  Support for Affordable Housing (HomeBase/The
  Center for Common Concerns, 1996)