Four organizations have emerged as champions of innovation, earning Ivory Innovations’ highly anticipated 2023 Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability.
Celebrating its fifth year, Ivory Innovations will distribute a total of $300,000 in prize money to support the transformative initiatives of these winners that have demonstrated ambition, feasibility, and scalability in their efforts to tackle the urgent issue of housing affordability.
“These remarkable winners of the 2023 Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability exemplify the spirit of innovation and the transformative impact it can have on addressing the pressing housing affordability crisis,” says Clark Ivory, CEO of Ivory Homes and founder of Ivory Innovations. “Their visionary approaches, from harnessing industrial-scale robotics to empowering marginalized communities, streamlining processes, and bringing transparency to zoning laws, inspire us to push boundaries and create a more accessible and equitable housing future for all.”
The 2023 Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability honorees include:
Building Generational Wealth with Dearfield Fund for Black Wealth, Denver: Launched by Gary Community Ventures, in partnership with Denver's Black community, The Dearfield Fund for Black Wealth is committed to closing the racial wealth gap and promoting Black homeownership by providing crucial down-payment assistance to first-time Black and African American home buyers.
“Many Black and African American families are considered ’mortgage-ready,’ but lack the capital needed for a down payment due to historic housing discrimination that has prevented Black people from building wealth,” says Aisha T. Weeks, managing director of the Dearfield Fund for Black Wealth. “The Ivory Prize is meaningful to us because it recognizes the program for our place-based impact, and elevates the Dearfield Fund as a scalable and replicable solution that can be used nationally to address housing affordability and to build generational wealth.”
Advancing Industrial Scale Robotics with Diamond Age, Phoenix: This construction company uses 3D printing and advanced industrial-scale robotics to get first-time home buyers into their first home faster. By automating home construction, the organization is providing a solution to the massive labor shortage plaguing the production housing industry and bringing more entry-level housing to market to balance demand.
“The current state of innovation in construction technology, though robust, is primarily focused on incremental improvements versus systemic change. Diamond Age is focused on changing the way homes are built, converting physically demanding manual labor into technology-focused jobs that will attract a new generation of workers into the industry,” says Jack Oslan, CEO of Diamond Age. “Winning the Ivory Prize is a milestone event in the short history of Diamond Age—it’s a tribute to our team's dedication to create affordability in single-family housing.”
Democratizing Zoning Laws with National Zoning Atlas, Ithaca, New York: This collaboration of researchers is digitizing, demystifying, and democratizing about 30,000 U.S. zoning codes through a user-friendly online resource.
“By analyzing a hundred different regulatory characteristics on every inch of zonable land, we're informing state and local policy decisions about housing, transportation, climate change, and public infrastructure,” says Sara Bronin, founder of National Zoning Atlas. “We are so grateful to be recognized by the Ivory Prize for this work, and we hope with this recognition that more people will use our data to catalyze reform—or even join or start an atlas team.”
Streamlining Permitting Processes with PermitFlow, San Jose, California: PermitFlow is the “TurboTax for construction permitting,” providing automation and workflow software that simplifies and accelerates the permitting process.
“Permitting processes and timelines can vary greatly for each project, and this lack of standardization makes it hard for builders to develop new units in a timely and cost effective manner,” says Francis Thumpasery, CEO of PermitFlow. “We are grateful for the Ivory Prize recognition and it will help us further our work of improving the construction permitting process.”
