Four innovative housing organizations have been bestowed with the 2024 Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability from Ivory Innovations.
Celebrating its sixth year, the Ivory Prize is an annual award recognizing ambitious, feasible, and scalable solutions to housing affordability. The prize was designed to award innovators for their efforts and provide material support to advance their projects.
“The winners of the 2024 Ivory Prize are a testament to the power of bold new ideas in housing,” says Clark Ivory, CEO of Ivory Homes and founder of Ivory Innovations. “Housing affordability is a continued and growing challenge for millions of Americans and we need innovative solutions of all types to make a difference in the housing industry. We invite you to join us in learning about and celebrating new housing approaches that have the potential to make exceptional positive change.”
The 2024 Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability honorees include:
Construction & Design Winner: Villa
Villa is a home building platform that focuses on building prefab homes in “missing middle” infill locations. The company uses an asset-light approach by partnering with factories to build homes based on Villa’s designs. With a focus on modern design, quality construction, and affordability, Villa is creating a scalable solution that can meet the need for more attainable housing production across America.
Finance Winner: Montgomery County Housing Production Fund
Created by the Housing Opportunities Commission of Montgomery County, Maryland, the Housing Production Fund (HPF) is a $100 million revolving fund that provides low-cost construction financing for the development of publicly owned, mixed-income housing. The HPF is expected to produce as many as 2,000 new housing units in the county by the end of the decade, of which at least 30% will be affordable.
Policy & Regulatory Reform Co-Winner: City of San Diego ADU Bonus Program
The city of San Diego has implemented an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Bonus Program that offers increased density for affordable ADUs. This incentive has led to the construction of naturally affordable, deed-restricted ADUs throughout the city. As of 2022, 295 deed-restricted ADUs had been permitted, compared to only 7 deed-restricted ADUs permitted in the city from 2018 to 2021.
Policy & Regulatory Reform Co-Winner: FirstRepair
First Repair has taken a local-to-national approach in the centuries-long movement for Black reparations. Localities nationwide are prioritizing housing-related redress as a first tangible step to repair the legacies of slavery in the United States. Services include workshops, educational symposiums, research, and policy design for local governments and institutions.
