If affordable housing isn't marketed and sold is it affordable?

Last week's City Paper has an excellent story on what should be a scandal, that there aren't standards and requirements in place to guide the marketing and sale of affordable housing units in most of the projects in DC which are required to offer such units as part of the overall project. See "The City Forces Developers to Sell Cheap Condos. But Can You Find Them?."

It's been almost 4 years since I sat on the ANC6C Planning and Zoning Committee. What I remember from back then is that DC's Dept. of Housing and Community Development was supposed to be in the process of creating a system for the marketing and sales of these units. (At that time there were a few projects in the pipeline, but limited experience with selling the units.)

Clearly, as the CP article shows, many developers don't show themselves responsible enough to be shouldered with this responsibility. Although rather than having DC DHCD be tasked with this responsibility, I'd probably recommend putting it out for bid and contracting it out, just as companies specialize in selling condominiums generally (i.e., the Mayhood Company). Market these units in the same fashion, without having to rely on individual developers doing it responsibly or doing it themselves.