It’s important at the outset to consider and develop a strategy for engaging the full range of stakeholders that you will want to involve on the process of developing a local housing strategy. These include:

1. 1. Organizations and individuals involved in developing, selling, leasing, or managing housing, including for-profit and nonprofit developers, builders, real estate professionals, housing managers, and landlords.
   2. Advocacy organizations that are focused on housing or related topics, such as homelessness, equity, civil rights, economic development, health, education, transportation, and the environment.
   3. Local residents and the community-based organizations that often work with them and represent them.
   4. Business leaders, including businesses that may be interested in expanding housing opportunities for their employees.

Community-based organizations bring important capacities and relationships and can provide insight into the residents’ needs and aspirations. Partnerships with organizations rooted in the community can help strengthen trust and accountability, ensure that community perspectives are brought in, and ultimately lead to a more successful, equitable housing strategy.

Including community members, especially populations whose voices are not always heard in traditional planning processes, from the very start and all the way through the implementation of a local housing strategy, is critical for a strong plan and a smooth process that maximizes community buy-in. It can also help overcome historical distrust of government. It is also vital to document the engagement process along the way. 

It is important to remember that there is great diversity within every city or region, and officials should not assume that one or two large nonprofits can represent the full range of perspectives that should be included. For example, organizations of the Overlake Community Engagement Project assessed their community and partnered with 40 different organizations to reach their diverse ethnic communities, religious groups, youth, and others.

It’s important to intentionally design engagement processes to increase the participation of people whose housing choices and access to opportunity have been shaped by segregation, discriminatory practices, a shortage of affordable housing, and displacement pressures to ensure a housing strategy addresses the locality’s greatest needs. However, members of these populations, who typically include people of color and low-income families, may have barriers to engagement. Having experienced exclusionary practices and disenfranchisement, they may be distrustful of government, for example. One potential way that localities could mitigate that concern is by partnering with a trusted community organization to help facilitate outreach in those communities. 

Employers can take a range of actions to help expand the supply of housing and the diversity of the housing stock, including forming coalitions to support the development of affordable housing, providing input on housing needs to support local planning efforts, and assisting localities in developing strategies to address those needs. In some cases, they can create employer-assisted housing programs to help their employees afford housing. Read this brief, Engaging Employers in Local Housing Strategies, to learn how localities can engage employers in their planning.