How do you balance the goals of affordability, sustainability, and diversity in your housing plan?

1 Assess your housing situation

The first step in comprehensive planning for housing is to assess your current housing situation and identify the gaps, opportunities, and challenges that you face. You can use various data sources, such as census, surveys, market studies, and housing inventories, to analyze the supply, demand, affordability, quality, and diversity of your housing stock. You can also engage your stakeholders, such as residents, developers, landlords, advocates, and service providers, to understand their perspectives, needs, and expectations. This will help you establish a baseline and a framework for evaluating your housing performance and progress.

2 Define your housing vision and goals

The next step is to define your housing vision and goals, based on your community values, aspirations, and priorities. Your housing vision should reflect what you want your housing system to look like in the future, and how it will contribute to your overall community well-being. Your housing goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, and address the key dimensions of affordability, sustainability, and diversity. For example, you may set goals to increase the supply of affordable housing units, reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from your housing sector, or promote the inclusion and integration of diverse populations in your neighborhoods.

4 Monitor and evaluate your housing plan

The final step is to monitor and evaluate your housing plan, based on your housing goals and indicators. Monitoring and evaluation are essential to track your housing performance and progress, identify the strengths and weaknesses of your housing plan, and make adjustments and improvements as needed. You can use various methods and sources, such as data collection, reporting, surveys, audits, and reviews, to measure and communicate your housing outcomes and impacts. You should also involve your stakeholders, such as residents, developers, landlords, advocates, and service providers, in the monitoring and evaluation process, to ensure transparency, accountability, and feedback.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?