I got my start in housing working at the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance in Seattle. It’s hard to believe it from the work they’re doing now, but at that time, we were just two staff members. Even with limited resources, we understood that effective communications would be key to our success as an affordable housing and homelessness advocacy organization.
To create those effective communications, I spent a lot of time researching best practices and trying to learn from other housing organizations the messages and techniques that worked to build support for affordable housing among neighbors and lawmakers. It was fascinating work, but I couldn’t help but feel isolated; I had a sense that there were others around the country doing the same work, but there was no single place to go to meet and learn from them, or share what I’d learned. And by “go” I certainly don’t mean travel. We simply didn’t have the budget at that time to fly me to meetings or pay for conference registrations.
NHC’s Housing Communications HUB is exactly the resource I was looking for when I was in Seattle. It’s a network of peers, a resource library, a place to learn and a place to share new ideas and discoveries. We built this site with support from the Ford Foundation to help build the communications capacity of the housing community. And we made it free.
Whether you work at the local, state or national level, as long as you’re interested in communicating effectively about affordable housing, the HUB is for you. I invite you to join the HUB today. I hope you’ll also sign up for my February 26 webinar introduction to the HUB’s many features.