Applying the Crisis Playbook to Affordable Housing

David A. Ball

Everyone wants the development of more housing—until it has an address.

That’s what our team has learned in our years supporting nonprofit and for-profit developer clients that have mobilized in response to a persistent housing crisis. Fighting opponents of new housing—mainly neighborhood advocacy organizations that block new development in the name—often falsely—of the environment, traffic and “preserving the fabric” of a community—requires its very own crisis communications playbook.

The NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) forces are powerful and often win in city and town halls. A law enacted several years ago in Massachusetts requires communities where public transit facilities and services are sited to upzone to enable more multi-family housing near those subway and commuter rail stations and bus routes. The law was a rational response to decades of underbuilding that has resulted in many young people not being able to afford homes across the densely populated eastern part of the state. Without such an intervention, young people leave and the region loses its vitality.

Communities that refuse to comply lose state grant funding and other resources.Several communities vigorously fought the law. One town even made the decision not to comply with the state’s Supreme Judicial Court.

Our firm’s HousingLab was launched in 2024 to support the creation of more housing while helping our clients to live their mission and achieve their goals. We have seen all kinds of opposition to temporary and permanent housing—from public officials deliberating on the idea of closing roads to prevent people from accessing a family shelter site to local citizens urging the removal of trolley service to exempt the community from the new state law. These are harsh tactics, and communicators must always be a step ahead to secure approval of a new project.

We took some key learnings from the hundreds of crises our firm has managed for over two decades and adapted them to tackle this fierce housing challenge.

Below are five key strategies that we deploy to get good, well-designed, quality housing developments built.

Media relations is at the core of your efforts. Your opponents will be advocating for their position with the media, so it is important that your media strategy includes regular outreach to key journalists. This includes both official news on the project, from the day it’s announced—after local officials have been briefed—as well as one-on-ones between the developer and reporter. When reporting contains misstatements from project opponents, it’s important to set the record straight with journalists and ensure that they have the key facts to avoid continued reporting of misinformation.

Embrace the facts. The NIMBY contingent thrives on making noise, often because they don’t have the facts on their side. They will overstate the impacts of a project, distort data and even create their own renderings that are wildly out-of-scale. Proponents for projects must continuously assert the facts, both in talking points and in a fact sheet, so that journalists and the public can better understand what the project truly represents for their community.

Create a microsite. A microsite—a smaller-scale website focused only on the project and not on the housing organization or developer—is yet another tool for advancing a project. Public-facing documents like a press release, renderings, the fact sheet and an FAQ can all be shared through the site, and a contact button or form creates an additional way for the public to ask questions, express concerns and get answers. People can also submit their email address for regular project updates. Where opponents tend to deploy their tactics through social media channels, particularly Facebook groups, a microsite is a single, credible destination for facts and information.

Process matters. While preparation and planning help organizations resolve crises more quickly and with less damage, the same applies to housing organizations and developers with respect to their external processes. Those that embrace neighbors through community meetings where they share plans and open up a communications channel are less likely to face strong opposition from the get-go. Sitting down with abutters and walking them through the project and its benefits, and seeking input, can make the permitting and approval path much easier.

Make accommodations where feasible. Rather than letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, those trying to build new housing should consider accommodating project opponents where it is practical to do so. While projects always need to “pencil out” and thus there is a threshold for size and density, changes to landscaping, lighting, parking and exterior design can demonstrate a good-faith effort to meet opponents in the middle and show local officials that the dialogue around a project is a two-way street.

We have a housing crisis, and the answer is to build more homes. We have found that while NIMBYs have the capacity to delay projects until they meet their demise, there are people in the community who want to support and help solve the housing crisis. Our housing communications playbook aims to overcome local concerns, meet the moment and get more housing built.

Future generations are counting on us.

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David A. Ball is President and Founder of Ball Consulting Group, LLC.