Affordability + Resident Engagement
Working session, June 2, 2026. Notes prepared by the Multifamily Impact Council.
What We Discussed
This was the opening session of the 2026 Framework Enhancement Initiative, kicking off the year’s revision cycle by tackling the first two principles: affordability and resident engagement. Rachel walked through the current draft definition and impact threshold for each, and the group spent time on a structural question related to Affordability.
The Framework defines it as a spectrum, can a renter afford the unit, while the impact threshold ties it to a specific AMI band. Patti Adams and David Borsos both pushed on whether that two layer structure reads clearly to someone seeing the framework for the first time. On resident engagement, Shayna Dunitz raised a concern around whether the framework does enough to put decision-making power in residents’ hands rather than property teams assuming their needs.
Why It Matters
David Borsos put his finger on a risk in the affordability definition as written. Today, it could technically describe a luxury property where no one happens to pay more than 30 percent of income, since the definition itself doesn’t distinguish deeply affordable housing from market rate housing that happens to be affordable to its tenants. That kind of ambiguity may undermine the Framework’s credibility with people encountering it for the first time, even though everyone steeped in these conversations understands the intent. On the resident engagement side, Members are calling for differentiation among service providers, bringing in more community partners and services that residents actually trust. Based on past experience, well-intentioned partnerships can replicate harm rather than prevent it. Rachel’s response, reordering the definition so stated resident priorities come before program outcomes and satisfaction, was a small edit with weight: it moves the framework from measuring whether services exist toward measuring whether residents are actually driving what gets built.
Where We Go From Here
Rachel is looking at adding an explanatory sentence to the affordability definition that draws the line more explicitly between the qualitative definition and the quantitative AMI threshold, so the framework doesn’t require insider context to read correctly. On resident engagement, the reordered definition, priorities first, then outcomes, then satisfaction, is a likely edit for this version, and Shayna’s point about vetting community partners for cultural competency and past community trust is a candidate for the resident engagement checklist in a future cycle, even if it doesn’t make this year’s cutoff. Framework 4.0 is targeted for an August release following these sessions, so any additional feedback on affordability or resident engagement should come in before the working group moves on to housing stability and economic health and mobility next week.
Key Takeaway
“If we're having to explain it here, then if we're showing it to somebody outside, they're gonna look at our definition of affordability and get a little confused.”
David Borsos, NMHC
Meeting Recording
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