In a bid to better engage the community on a pressing issue, Salem recently produced a series of four videos highlighting the city’s critical need for more affordable housing.
Released over four consecutive days from May 20-23, Homes for Salem (tinyurl.com/HomesForSalem) features city officials, local housing specialists, and people directly impacted by the housing shortage discussing the problem and potential strategies to address it.
The videos, totalling 20 minutes, were produced for the city by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council as one feature of an overall initiative Salem began last fall to find solutions to its housing needs, according to Tom Daniel, the city’s director of planning and community development. The council is serving as a consultant for the project.
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“Through the course of our work with them, they had an idea that a video would have a kind of storytelling [effect] to help with education and outreach” on the issue, Daniel said of the council.
“If we want to continue to be the type of community we are today, a place that welcomes individuals of different backgrounds, different income levels . . . we really need to be thoughtful about our policies, and we need people engaged,” Mayor Kimberley L. Driscoll says at the outset of the opening video.
Karina Milchman, chief of Housing and Neighborhood Development for the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, said the use of videos as a way to connect with the community on an issue is “an emerging approach localities are exploring.” This marks the council’s first use of the tool.
“My team has seen over and over that data only goes so far in helping folks understand the scope of the housing crisis and talking jargon about a particular policy or program only goes so far in building support for it,” she said.
A video series seemed a creative way “to have a conversation with the community that is not just based on understanding the facts of the crisis but on understanding who is impacted and building empathy for those folks,” added Milchman.
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Alex Koppelman, a regional housing and land use planner for the council who served as videographer, said the series allowed for insights from community stakeholders, data, and stories about people with housing challenges to be combined “into one package.”
The videos cite the fact that a Salem household earning the renter median income of $37,396 can afford $935 a month on rent, according to US census data, but that the 2017 median rental price of a one-bedroom in Salem was $1,675 and a two-bedroom, $1,970.
“If you’re spending more than 50 percent of your paycheck in rent, soon enough you’re going to find yourself in a position where you’ll be asking yourself: what bill do I pay this month,” local real estate broker Cynthia Nina-Soto, says in one of the videos.
According to Amanda Chiancola, the city’s senior planner, Salem currently has 2,032 deed-restricted affordable housing units including 135 Lafayette, a mixed-use development where all 51 apartments are based on income.
The housing initiative, which has also been the subject of community workshops, focus groups, and a forum, is currently focused on two zoning proposals: an inclusionary ordinance requiring developers to set aside a minimum number of affordable units, and a measure to expand use of accessory, or in-law apartments. Other proposals are in the works.
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Daniel said the videos are intended to inform people so they can decide, themselves, what policies to support.. “We just want people to be aware and educated.”
John Laidler can be reached at laidler@globe.com.