Community relations campaign aims to build support for permanent housing for homeless

Communities nationwide are struggling to find a solution to homelessness. In Orange County, California, United to End Homelessness (U2EH) engaged the agency Idea Hall to help build support for a proven solution: permanent supportive housing. The resulting campaign has won the top prize in the “Community Relations Campaign” category of the PR Daily Awards.

The agency’s goals were ambitious: 100 million impressions, 3,500 local pledges of support and at least $100,000 in value-add media. Research was vital to the effort, given the need to understand local residents’ perceptions and attitudes toward the proposed solution. Research also included a media landscape assessment and other media insights, journalist interviews, case studies for solving homelessness and more.

The campaign featured public-facing collateral including bus shelter ads, billboards, digital ads, video ads and print ads, along with media outreach (with op-eds supplementing press releases and pitches).

The media program kicked off with an exclusive for the Orange County Register telling the tale of a homeless individual suffering from multiple sclerosis. Idea Hall also implemented a media buying plan that included a 12-page custom magazine-style publication distributed with the Register and the Orange County Business Journal.

The team surpassed its impressions goal by more than 90%, with 191.9 million total impressions. It also exceeded its pledge goal, mobilizing 4,286 community members to pledge their support to the permanent housing solution. Finally, it secured a total of $200,000 in value-add media (for example, two free digital billboards and 208 free bus shelter ads).

Congratulations to Rebecca Hall, Anita Mellon, Kristina Sarenas, Nicole Deermount and Angelyssa Granillo.