View on web

Hi John,

10 years ago, Affordable Housing Month didn't look much as it does today. What began as separate and dispersed Affordable Housing Weeks is now a cohesive, coordinated opportunity that stretches nationwide to uplift transformative housing solutions and the affordable future that we know is possible for all our neighbors and communities.

Thanks to thoughtful partnership with our Bay Area Affordable Housing Partners (BAAHP) and NPH members through the Strategic Communications Council, we proudly pioneered early Affordable Housing Month in the Bay Area to celebrate our industry and amplify cohesive, shared messages of hope, affordability, and housing for all. We grew alignment and support with key affordable housing partners on the West Coast and in DC. Now in 2025, we have witnessed an organic, national unfolding of Affordable Housing Month celebrations and activities that have reached states all over the country, spanning local, state, and national groups and multiple sectors.

Community partners from Virginia to New York, Missouri to Arizona, Texas to Massachusetts – and beyond – are inviting residents around the nation to learn about affordable housing solutions and join us in moving them forward.

The takeaway here is that amplification and visibility works, even if it takes time. With enough perseverance and strategy, messages take on a life of their own. Affordable Housing Month will keep growing and I’m excited to work with you to continue advancing research-backed, polling-informed messages and stories ahead. Today, join NPH in appreciating the highlights below from Affordable Housing Month 2025!

I’m so proud to share this year’s highlights as we collaborated to amplify our message of hope:

📽️ Expanding Our Reach with Video Messages! “In the face of chaos, we choose care.” That’s the message that affordable housing leaders delivered in our new video for Affordable Housing Month this year, using storytelling tactics developed in our Begins with Home campaign. Seen by thousands of people and shared widely across LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, our video delivered a timely and urgent message from our industry to ensure that Bay Area residents know where we stand.

📊 Tangible Progress: Affordable Housing Grand Openings & Groundbreakings! During Affordable Housing Month, our members and partners opened more than 1,000 new affordable homes throughout the Bay Area. Through many grand openings and groundbreakings, attendees met the people who live and work in affordable housing and witnessed firsthand the progress our region is making by creating more affordable homes. NPH supported our members with a media strategy that helped inform and secure coverage, showcasing that affordable homes are being built right now, there remains a deep need for even more affordable homes in our region, and the life-saving impact it has on its residents is priceless:

💪 Strengthening Our Industry: Affordable Housing Supplier Diversity Summit Hundreds came together in San Francisco on May 15 for the 2nd Annual NorCal Affordable Housing Supplier Diversity Summit, a collaboration with Swinerton, to celebrate Affordable Housing Month and National Small Business Month by promoting diversity within affordable housing suppliers. The event provided clarity on AB 2873, which requires affordable housing developers to include in their work plans a goal to procure diverse suppliers and contractors, and supported this goal by connecting developers with general contractors, architects, affinity groups, advocates, and small/local/diverse vendors.

Speakers from the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee (CTCAC) and the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency (BCSH) spoke to the spirit and intention behind legislation like AB 2873 and challenged attendees to think about how we do business. The Summit was an opportunity to deepen existing partnerships and support our industry with timely and emerging requirements.

⚒️ Winning Change with Powerful, Research-Backed Tools Over the course of a two-part NPH training, we unpacked key insights and specific applications from our year-long narrative campaign, Begins with Home, that can fuel our collective work to build public support for affordable housing in the Bay Area. Over a hundred housing leaders, advocates, funders, and communications strategists joined us to discuss our innovative narrative research and ways we can all be implementing successful storytelling and narrative strategy.

🔠 Check out the social media word cloud below to see what words and phrases were most used alongside #AffordableHousingMonth:

📚 Deepening Community Partnerships: Bay Area Libraries Community partnerships help us reach new audiences with information, resources, and an opportunity to get involved. Libraries and community partners across the Bay Area celebrated Affordable Housing Month to raise awareness and share information about affordable housing solutions for all our Bay Area neighbors and communities. We were proud to partner with more than 60 library branches in four counties across the Bay Area during Affordable Housing Month to share awareness and distribute related materials. Libraries offered curated Affordable Housing Month book recommendations and displays, handed out stickers and bookmarks to patrons, and hung posters throughout their branches.

In Community,

Alina Harway
NPH Communications Director