If you own or develop a housing project with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), you are charged with clearly identifying the marketing strategies and steps you’ll take to market available housing to persons less likely to apply for housing in a metropolitan statistical area. If that sounds like a difficult task, it is – but did you know you can use an HUD compliance requirement – the Affirmative Fair Housing Marketing (AFHM) plan – to guide your efforts and ensure they’re successful?
Piggybacking on the AFFH Mandate
The purpose of the AFHM is to help you offer equal housing opportunities regardless of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability, according to the HUD Exchange website. HUD itself is required by law to develop programs that “affirmatively further fair housing” (AFFH), and the AFHM plan is a part of that process, as AFFH is also a requirement to participate in one of the HUD’s many housing and community development programs. “Affirmative fair housing marketing and planning should be part of all new construction, substantial rehabilitation, and existing project marketing and advertising activities,” according to HUD.
But how does HUD actually processes this requirement, and what marketing strategies and steps need to be taken to sell available housing to people who are unlikely to know about public housing availability or apply for housing in a metropolitan area? Getting into the meat of the AFHM will go a long way towards ensuring your public housing compliance efforts are directed correctly and efficiently.
Why Create an Affirmative Fair Housing Plan?
The primary reason to create an effective AFHM plan is to gain the attention of all those who usually don’t apply for housing on their own. This purpose is also bound by a set of laws and executive orders, including The Fair Housing Act, Executive Order 11063, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
The AFHM plan completed for either multifamily or single family housing.
Creation of affirmative fair housing plans ensures that more people are attracted to apply for HUD housing through:
- Promotion of same housing opportunities to all the individuals hailing from similar income levels, and who (may) belong to different race, color, sex, religion, handicap, national origin or familial status
- Ensuring positive outreach and informational efforts to those least likely to know about and/or apply for the housing in question
- Those involved in the housing program pursuing affirmative fair housing marketing policies in soliciting buyers and tenants
At the same time, creating an approval-ready affirmative housing plan is very challenging, as you need to know what information to include, where to find statistical data, how to identify those less likely to apply for housing, etc.
How to Prepare Your AFHM Plan
Join AudioSolutionz’s “Create Affirmative Fair Housing Plans That Get Approved” webinar with industry expert Elaine Simpson, as she outlines how to create a plan that will not only be approved but that can also be implemented effectively at the site level. Elaine will help you learn how to complete an Affirmative Fair Housing Marketing plan by watching the step-by-step process of completing a sample plan. After this program, you’ll able to do so with full confidence that you’ll receive approval from HUD.
