A Guide to Developing a Municipal Affordable Housing Strategy

Book excerpt: The purpose of this guidebook is to give municipalities a detailed account of how to adopt an affordable housing strategy. The introduction reviews the types of affordable housing strategies, their benefits & strengths, and the principles on which advice in the guidebook is based. The remaining chapters cover the following steps in strategy development: preparation (including establishment of a task force, developing terms of reference, identifying available resources and potential problems & solutions), needs assessment, public participation (including consultation, communication, & information dissemination), formulation of action plans and integrating them into a strategy, implementation of the strategy, partnership development & implementation, and strategy evaluation & monitoring. Case study examples are provided throughout for illustration.