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Introduction
Affordable housing affects just about everyone, and unfortunately, not many people
really know what affordable housing means. In partnering with the Home Matters and the
Virginia Housing Coalition, we set out to tackle this issue by creating awareness across
Virginia college campuses.
Our team discovered that many people across our campus, as well as other areas of the
city of Richmond, Va., did not actually know what affordable housing meant. For this
reason, we decided that our main focus should be raising awareness about what
affordable housing is and how it affects us as college students, as well as recent graduates
newly entering the workforce as young professionals.
About Home Matters
Home Matters seeks to make quality affordable housing available for all Americans.
Their main objectives are raising funds and awareness to make the New American
Dream a reality. This is carried out by partnering with various organizations around the
country, where each plays an integral role in fulfilling their mission.
About Virginia Housing Coalition
The VHC is focused on influencing public policy to put affordable housing projects on
the map. Their efforts alternate between focusing on awareness building as a form of
promotion and making public policy associated with affordable housing and raising
awareness.
Research Phase
Our team used primary as well as secondary research in order to fully understand the
issue of affordable housing and various stakeholders.
We began with secondary research in order to not only find the actual definition of what
affordable housing is, but also to identify and find key information and statistics about
target audiences.
Primary Research
Our primary research consisted of conducting qualitative intercept interviews with
random pedestrians in two different public locations: the Carytown business district in the
City of Richmond, Va., as well as the Student Commons at Virginia Commonwealth
University. (Refer to DVD for video footage of the interviews)
First Set of Interviews
The purpose of conducting sets of interviews in Carytown was to gain insight into the
views and awareness of general Richmond-area residents regarding affordable housing.
Carytown is a popular destination for residents of Richmond and the surrounding
counties with high pedestrian traffic.

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In the first set of interviews in Carytown, participants were asked three open-ended
questions:
1. How would you define affordable housing?
2. Do you think affordable housing can be good for the economy? Why/how?
3. How would affordable housing in your neighborhood affect you?
Many respondents seemed confused or uninformed about what affordable housing
actually is. Therefore, the answers to the other questions asked were skewed for many of
the participants because of those misperceptions. In addition, many participants confused
affordable housing with public housing, or thought they were the same thing. The
consistency in the confusion of the definition of affordable housing led not only to further
investigation of peoples perceptions, but also created the basis of our communication
plan.
Most people interviewed believed that increasing affordable housing would have a
positive impact on the community and the economy, even though most did not know
exactly how this would happen. What we found to be interesting, however, was attitudes
toward affordable housing being developed in someones own neighborhood. Though
none of the participants personally had a bias against affordable housing being placed in
their neighborhood, most felt that a stigma could be associated with people who needed
affordable housing.
Another interesting finding was the fact that two participants who stated they were
homeless were more informed and aware of affordable housing. This finding further
showed us the importance of spreading the message to the general public about
affordable housing.
Unfortunately, reaching the general public broadly proved difficult to achieve so collegeaged adults in Richmond was ultimately selected as a key audience, as we felt that
educating this particular audience also would have a more lasting impact.
Second Set of Interviews
The second set of intercept interviews took place in the Student Commons at Virginia
Commonwealth University (VCU). The purpose of conducting these interviews with
random pedestrians in the Student Commons was to understand representative options of
college-aged adults. The Student Commons is a public space on VCUs campus with a
high degree of foot traffic. The following questions were asked of members of this
particular audience:
1. How would you define affordable housing?
2. Do you think your current housing budget is affordable based on your budget?
Why?
3. What is your general perception of other college students housing situation?
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The answers to these questions, similar to those interviewed in Carytown, portrayed a

lack of awareness and knowledge related to the subject of affordable housing among
some of the students. Half of the students interviewed thought that housing is affordable
to students and half of the students did not think that housing is affordable for students.
This split in beliefs stem from students not understanding the technical criteria of what
makes housing affordable. This finding revealed to us how important it was to educate
students of the Richmond area of what makes housing affordable and helped us with the
construction of our message to our audience.
Secondary Research
Our team also conducted secondary research to learn more about our audience of Virginia
students. Through this research, we were able to discover: (1) the unemployment rate of
college graduates; (2) statistics on the homelessness rate of college students; (3) the rate
of part-time student workers; (4) the average salary of college graduates; (5) and the
overall affordable housing situation in Virginia as a whole. All findings came from
government organizations and reputable news sources.
The most impactful information that informed our campaign included the following:
National Statistics
58,000 college students in the US are considered homeless
41 percent of full-time college students were employed in 2012
o 18 percent of full-time college students worked 20 to 34 hours per week
o 15 percent of full-time college students worked less than 20 hours per
week
72 percent of part-time college students were employed in 2012
o 32 percent of the part-time students worked 35 or more hours per week
o 29 percent worked 20 to 34 hours per week
Local/Virginia Statistics
Nearly 50% of Richmond households pay more than 30% of their income for their
housing. (30% of income is considered affordable)
22% of Richmond households pay more than 50% of their income for housing.
o Many of those households earn less than 30% of the area median income
(equates to less than $20,000 per year in the Richmond area)
More than 3,000 Richmond residents on Richmond Redevelopment Housing
Authoritys waiting list for affordable housing
Our team used this information to also create content to reach out to college students of
Virginia to portray the housing situation in our area and to let them know how affordable
housing is relevant to them as college students.
Target Audiences
To generate awareness and support among Virginia college students, our target audience
focused on students and Virginia residents between 18-24 years of age. We also targeted
young professionals between the ages of 23-30.

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Key Messages
Our key messages focused on educating students of Virginia college campuses on what
affordable housing is, and current statistics about the status of affordable housing in
Virginia. Thus, our key messages were as follows:
1. Housing is affordable when there is money left over in your budget for other basic
necessities.
2. Approximately 13% of adult children between 18 and 29 move back in with their
parents after an attempt to live alone.
3. The median gross rent in VA per year $13,392.
4. Spending more than 30% of your income on housing costs is considered housing
poor.
Goals
Our goal was to generate awareness and support among Virginia college students of the
impact of affordable housing and the need for solutions.
This goal was established because most people, especially those of the college, age do not
know what affordable housing is or how it affects them.
Lack of awareness throughout the community, awareness of affordable housing as well as
Home Matters is hindered. Furthermore, in order to raise awareness for affordable
housing and ultimately for the organization Home Matters, we would have to first
educate and inform our audience of the definition of affordable housing.
Objective #1
To generate raise awareness among 3,000 current Virginia college students by Feb. 28,
2015, as indicated by social reach on Facebook.
Facebook was selected as both a means of distribution and measurement of campaign
results. Facebook offers many different media and types of options to share and develop
content. Facebook also remains the social media platform with the most users. Therefore,
we could assume that most of our defined audience of Virginia college students could be
reached via a new Facebook page called Support Affordable Housing for Students.
Strategy: To demonstrate through social media that affordable housing is an important
issue for college students to be aware of and concerned about.
Rationale: Most college graduates require affordable housing as they get out of school.
Graduates living in Virginia face high rates of unemployment at 12.2 percent for those
with some college education and 7 percent for those with at least a bachelors degree.
Tactic: Content was posted to the Facebook page five days a week. We utilized three
different content types. They were posted in accordance to a content calendar that we had
created before launching the campaign. (See Appendices for examples)

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Mondays and Fridays: Infographics that defined what affordable housing was and
what the current state of housing was.
Tuesdays and Thursdays: Articles related to affordable housing, cost-burdened
students, and homelessness.
Wednesday: Video public service announcements that were filmed and edited
from our primary research intercept interviews. The qualitative data we gathered
were used to incite discussion and raise awareness around our key messages.

Evaluation: In all, 3,548 Facebook impressions were generated during February through
organic user sharing. This includes the total number of post clicks, likes, comments, and
shares on all posts made by the Facebook page Support Affordable Housing for
Students. The average reach was 488 for video content, 232 for photo content, and 77
for linked content.
Post Reach and Engagement

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Total Reach

Page Likes

Page Visits

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Demographics of People Reached

Objective #2
To obtain 1,000 signatures from current Virginia college students for an online petition
by February 28, 2015.
Strategy: To persuade Virginia college students that their support for affordable housing
reform is needed and that an online petition could lead to reform.
Rationale: Virginia college students are not only affected by the lack of affordable
housing availability, they also make up the demographic that has the greatest ability to
gain support as most Facebook users are between 18-24 years old.
Tactic #1: We utilized our Facebook page to promote the petition via our personal
networks as well as through the Virginia Housing Coalitions network. This was
accomplished via sharing and liking.
Tactic #2: The petition was reposted throughout the month of February to maintain a
consistent inflow of signatures.

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Tactic #3: Facebook, personal email networks, and word-of-mouth was utilized to push
the petition through our personal networks.
Tactic #4: Our petition was disseminated through the listservs at George Mason
University, Longwood University, Virginia Tech, Virginia State University, and Virginia
Union University.
Evaluation: The petition received 57 signatures in February, which did not meet our
original objective of 1,000. Our tactics were oriented towards getting the petition in front
of people, but not inciting a behavior. Call-to-actions are the most difficult yet rewarding
objectives and we were not prepared with appropriate tactics. Our tactics were most
likely responsible for the higher Facebook engagement, thus meeting our first objective.
Timetable

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Challenges
Our team ran into a variety of problems, the most prominent related to fully
understanding the competition guidelines. With a number of ways to increase national
dialogue around affordable housing, we were not sure where to start. Breaking this
complex issue down, it began with finding a partner organization that was appropriate for
our purposes. We began gathering secondary data that mostly targeted governmentassisted housing. After weeks of gathering information that would be used we discovered
that the Virginia Housing Coalition was the recommended partner by PRSA for the case
study. With this said, we did not get connected with the Virginia Housing Coalition until
late into the project.
Over the course of several meetings with the Virginia Housing Coalition, we struggled
with devising many deliverables for the project that would bring a mutual value to both
the team and our partner. Each time we met we understood more about what they would
like to have done and what we could realistically accomplish in our time frame.
Originally we had been targeting key influencers and decision makers in Virginia. After
extensive correspondence with our partner organization, we found that it would be highly
unlikely to succeed with such a hard to reach, high caliber target audience. VHC provided
us with insight that had us revise most of our campaign plan we had developed and focus
on a social media campaign that we would later implement.
Another issue we dealt with was coordinating schedules to determine when our team
could meet. Conflicting schedules and full course loads made it very difficult to meet
with our partner organization and then fill in team members that could not be in
attendance. Most of the emails sent out prior to important meetings were reiterating
things we went over in the meeting. This created the issue where we spent a lot of time
catching everyone up instead of thinking strategically on how to move forward.
Maintaining momentum throughout the academic year was also a challenge our team
faced. We found ourselves facing additional stress keeping everyone connected during
midterms, finals, and throughout winter break. This was overcome through consistent
messaging and getting the team physically together after the winter holiday to do a
massive recap.
We began this project with a team of five members. Midway through our research phase,
one of our members dropped out. At this point we had already registered our team
members and could not take on any new members to pick up the extra workload. The
setback was minimal at the time because we were still working independently to figure
out what angle we should tackle this project. However in the long run, it would have put
our team at a maximum potential to have another team member help facilitate the
implementation process.

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Lessons Learned
While managing full course loads and with no budget, our team has successfully achieved
our objective of hitting 3000 Facebook impressions. This project was rewarding in the
experience we gained. We took away the following bits of wisdom from this project:

A budget would have benefitted our campaign greatly. If we had made monetary
resources available, we could have used them for boosted Facebook posts. This
would have helped drive the online petition signatures, something we lacked in.
The Bateman Case Study Competition should be an independent study section or
special topics course at Virginia Commonwealth University. This would allow for
a set time each week for the team to meet and make solid deadlines that the
students would be held accountable for. Considering that this competition is as
high caliber as it is, it deserves to be treated as such among VCU students.
Teams should be solidified before the competition begins. Alternatively, an
application and interview process for interested team members could be
implemented before the start of the fall semester. Time is of the essence in public
relations planning and it should not be wasted with minor tasks like recruitment.
Being mindful of what we can actually achieve can be the difference between
success and failure. Our team overestimated what we could realistically achieve
with no budget and a pressing timeline, yet still made a decent impact to our
target audience organically, while helping our partner make progress toward their
goals.

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Appendix A
Infographics

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Appendix B
Articles

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Appendix C
Average unemployment rate of college graduates (and others)
Source: http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=561
12.2 percent unemployment for those with some college education, compared with an
unemployment rate of 7.0 percent for those with at least a bachelor's degree (20-24 year
olds).

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Appendix D
Average salary of college graduates
Source: http://naceweb.org/s09042013/salary-survey-average-starting-class-2013.aspx
Figure 1: Average Salaries by Discipline
Broad Category
2013 Average Salary 2012 Average Salary Percent Change
Business
$55,635
$51,541
7.9%
Communications
$43,835
$42,286
3.7%
Computer Science
$58,547
$60,038
-2.5%
Education
$40,337
$39,080
3.2%
Engineering
$62,062
$60,639
2.3%
Humanities & Social Sciences
$37,791
$36,824
2.6%
Math & Sciences
$42,731
$42,355
0.9%
Overall
$45,327
$44,259
2.4%

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Appendix E
Homelessness rate of college students
Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/21/homeless-studentsamerican-colleges/3144383/
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid tells the National Association for the
Education of Homeless Children and Youth (NAEHCY) that there are 58,000 homeless
students on campuses nationwide.
Since colleges are not required to keep track of their homeless students, the FASFA form
is the only significant data available.
According to the NAEHCY, many homeless students trying to go to college don't receive
enough financial aid because they can't provide information about their parents or
guardians on the form. Several pieces of legislation have helped remove the barriers
between homeless students and financial aid, such as the recent Higher Education Act.

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Appendix F
College Students ages 16-24 Hours worked vs. Attendance Status
Source: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_csb.asp
Based on the Current Population Survey (CPS):
41 percent of full-time college students and 72 percent of part-time college
students 16 to 24 years old were employed in October 2012.
o About 7 percent of the full-time students worked 35 or more hours per
week
o 18 percent worked 20 to 34 hours per week, and 15 percent worked less
than 20 hours per week. In comparison,
o 32 percent of the part-time students worked 35 or more hours per week
o 29 percent worked 20 to 34 hours per week
o 9 percent worked less than 20 hours per week.

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Appendix G
Affordable Housing Crisis in Richmond VA
Source: http://www.riscrichmond.org/affordable-housing/

Nearly 50% of Richmond households pay more than 30% of their income for
their housing. According to the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban
Development, housing is considered unaffordable if its costs more than 30% of a
familys income.
22% of Richmond households pay more than 50% of their income for housing.
Many of those households earn less than 30% of the area median income (which
for the Richmond Metro Area equates to less than $20,000 per year). This group
is at increased risk of homelessness and is subject to greater family instability,
lower educational scores, higher criminal rates and higher incidence of
preventable health problems.
There are more than 3,000 Richmond residents on Richmond Redevelopment
Housing Authoritys waiting list for housing, without enough affordable housing
to accommodate these citizens; they are at greater risk for homelessness.

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