Affordable Housing Press Conference

This opportunity was a big win for Omaha. A private funder planned to purchase a $40 million city bond to support the development and preservation of affordable housing in Omaha’s urban core. The funds were granted to Front Porch Investments, an experienced housing nonprofit, to distribute as gap financing that incentivizes affordable housing development and preservation. And the bond will later be easily paid back by the billions of dollars in increased tax revenue in this area thanks to development spurred by a streetcar project.

But, based on Emspace’s experience with city-involved projects, we knew it was important to get ahead of negative misinformation, such as this project being at the expense of taxpayers, that the media can sometimes lean toward. We facilitated conversations between Front Porch Investments staff and the City’s planning and finance departments to clarify how the bond investment would work, why its timing was so important for affordable housing, and how to prepare for a myriad of questions at a planned live press conference.

Our objective was to secure favorable, accurate stories from all major media outlets in Omaha about this affordable housing opportunity. Normally, we would wait until an opportunity was “real” to pitch a story, but to allow the bond purchase in the first place, the planning board and city council needed to review and approve an amendment to the Urban Core Housing and Mobility Redevelopment Plan. We knew as soon as an item was placed on the public planning board agenda, the media would be likely to publish speculative stories, so we scheduled a proactive mayor’s press conference to announce the opportunity, get ahead of the narrative and equip the media with facts and materials to support their reporting.

In addition to creating an informational one-sheet to brief council members in advance of the press conference, Emspace collaborated on press conference talking points for the mayor and Front Porch Investments’ executive director; wrote an internal FAQs document for all parties to practice; organized a “run of show” document for the press conference; developed and distributed a day-of press packet including a press release, a map of the urban core investment area, and a one-pager overview of Front Porch Investments; managed one-on-one media interviews following the press conference remarks; and monitored and reported media stories.