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F Is for Framing
In 2008, Miami-based developer Lennar and what the San Francisco Chronicle called a “dream team” of connected political operatives put a proposal to develop the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood on the ballot. People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), a San Francisco–based social justice group, and their allies jumped into action and placed a competing proposition on the ballot. Proposition F would have set a 50 percent affordable housing requirement for the project—an unprecedented percentage. POWER approached CMJ to support their campaign with communications strategy and PR for this groundbreaking volunteer-driven ballot initiative.
Framing is as much about actions as it is words, as Prop F and the June 3, 2008, California elections proved. It’s about the positions you stake, the demands you make, and the communications power you take. There’s an old saying in politics, PR, communications, and war: Sometimes even if you lose, you win.
Despite being outspent to a staggering degree (opponents spent around $4 million, while the Prop F campaign spent only about $10,000), Prop F went down narrowly amidst a barrage of ads in the week leading up to the June 3 ballot. Yet the community-led proposition to require that 50 percent of any housing built in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood be affordable for the residents who currently live there successfully changed the debate around the economy and housing—from how communities may benefit from corporate development (CBAs) to how communities can control how and for whom development happens in their neighborhoods—and made possible an increase in guaranteed affordable housing in the development, from 25 percent to 35 percent. Furthermore, Prop F even affected the development debate beyond the San Francisco Bay Area, with a story that appeared in the New York Times covering F’s unprecedented proposal of 50 percent affordable housing.
Check out how CMJ helped our partners change the story on this issue
