Plainly stated - the more who know the better off we are – aiming the demystify AMI
All professions have their lingo including how we talk in community development. We are in love with jargon, the acronym, and the abbreviation. We shorten multiple words into new words, turn nouns into verbs, use complex vocabulary, and omit words or clauses as we communicate expecting we all share the same base of assumed knowledge.
Turn on any City Council meeting, come to any public meeting, or read articles like the one here and you see it. Not uncommon in other field such as academics, health care, real estate, manufacturing, you name it, after a while there is a form of group speak and norms on communication that you only truly understand if you are “one of us”.
I recall the first staff meeting I attended with the Minneapolis Community Development Agency. I am certain they spoke in the accepted code on purpose as a low-stakes initiation to the team. Honestly, I wondered if I made the wrong decision to take that job as I was totally confused by what was going on during that discussion.
Having a shared vocabulary, set of acronyms and abbreviations, norms of behavior, and a base of assumed knowledge creates efficiencies in process and outputs in most professions and why we use it. However, we lose outcomes and slow achieving equity if we rely on this common professional language. For it’s the community we serve who we confuse when we only speak in our jargon.
The more confused community is from how we present language the less likely we see people take advantage of resources we offer. Our coded language subliminally tells people we don’t serve you if they don’t understand what we are saying. The purpose of the plain language in government movement is inclusion through the use of language that more people understand.
In Minneapolis back in 2018, we developed a strategic racial equity action plan. During the development of that plan, we discussed the metaphor of the “invisible handshake” and how it impairs removing barriers to reducing disparities. The “invisible handshake” is the notion that those already in the know are most likely to access resources we have to offer. Increasing visibility and participation in our programs we must make that handshake visible and friendly.
Minneapolis invests heavily into affordable housing. We have programs that support rental construction and preservation, growing homeownership, and assisting existing homeowners with capital needs. We have 7 strategies addressing 5 values with the goal to ensure that everyone in Minneapolis has safe, dignified, and affordable housing. Under the direction of Mayor Jacob Frey , we are producing 6.5 times the amount of deeply affordable, low-income housing than before his administration took office. We are using millions of dollars to support people’s ticket to wealth building in the homeownership of Minneapolis Homes, stabilizing the lives of kids in the Stable Homes Stable Schools program I have already written about, and addressing unsheltered homelessness. We report on these strategies in The Way Home report each year.
No matter how much we invest in these programs, if we are not increasing awareness in a broader community we will not meet our main goal as people will slip through the cracks. To build better awareness this year we released a companion video series to The Way Home report. It’s a series because we must first define what we mean before we let you know what we did.
We produced two foundational videos responding to common questions we receive when we talk about affordable housing – what is affordable housing and what is AMI? Our hope with this first two instructional videos is to increase understanding of the language we use and to demystify a seemingly technocratic set of programs.
The series include:
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To increase inclusion we are working to translate them into more languages, which will become a growing practice in future efforts to talk about our programs. While we are not answering every question we are tying our best speak plainly and define more concepts so we are most effective in achieving our goals creating a more equitable community.
Of course, we wouldn’t have anything to promote if it was for the people who developed and managed our programs. I recognize our former Housing and CPED Director Andrea Brennan , former Residential Finance manager Angie Skildum , and former RREDS manager Roxanne Kimball and their teams for the critical work to develop these strategies. I recognize current Housing Director (and former RREDS manager) Elfric Porte, current Residential Finance manager Amy Geisler , and current RREDS manager Cherie Shoquist and their teams for the continued administration of these important programs.
I would like to recognize and thank the communications team who pushed us forward with creation of this series, especially our Communications Manager Dorothea Martti who produced the series. The others include:
Script consultants: Emily Carr , Amy Geisler, Meg McMahan, AICP , Sarah Milnar , Michael Peterson , Elfric Porte, Jennifer Rudlong- Smith , Cherie Shoquist, Carly St. Martin-Norburg , Jason Wittenberg
Video team: Kim Brown , CJ Harrison, Joe Mellor
On camera presenters: Ehadi Lohese, Ryan N. , Patrick Sheahan
We plan to more inclusive plain language content in the near future on our community development efforts as we work to be a better community.
Managing Meetings, Emotions, and People.
2 个月Insightful read! I often think about the use of jargon or less approachable vocabulary, especially on subjects where inclusivity may result in better problem solving and more resilient communities.
GovTech Sales & Creative
2 个月The most culturally competent sentence I’ve heard in a long time: “Our coded language subliminally tells people we don’t serve you if they don’t understand what we are saying.” Great read Erik, thanks for sharing!