Ivory Prize Opens 2024 Search For Housing's Next-Gen Trail Blazers

John McManus -

Merriam Webster's definition 1a of the word impossible is "incapable of being or occurring." Improbably, the first known use of the 1a sense of the word impossible comes in the 14th Century, leaving one to imagine a world before that time where people may have believed nothing was truly impossible.

Today, it's practically given wisdom that here in the U.S. – as may be true everywhere and for all time – affordable housing in its naked sense of universally attainable access to decent, healthy, safe places to live is impossible. There's hardly a need to list ways that affordability, in every one of its stripes, is housing's and perhaps the American economy's and society's sweeping challenge.

We've referenced this brief, eloquent example of such given wisdom before, an analysis entitled, "Housing Breaks People's Brains," in The Atlantic, by Jerusalem Demsas. Eighty words into her story, a narrative thrust screams impossibility.

Anyone who’s been in a dumb recurring fight knows that the entire problem could be cleared up if everyone could just agree on exactly what was said or done. But you can’t, so you end up stuck in a cycle of relitigation. Housing-policy discussions are like that. They descend into crushing bickering because even the basic facts are up for debate.
The most basic fact about the housing crisis is the supply shortage. Yet many people deny this reality." [note each word's link]

The epic and very near allegorical power of Demsas' simple story is in the fine line she exposes between possibility and impossibility when it comes to housing affordability. Housing affordability – for many more households, if not all – lies squarely within the realm of the possible in the physical, technological, financial, and even a broad-span of the regulatory sense of the term. It crosses that very fine line into impossibility due to a neighbor, or an artifact of indefensible zoning, or some other human-to-human barrier.

It's not abstractions nor physical-world impediments that thwart solutions. It's not the physical capability nor – taken by itself -- the cost involved. It's people. Housing affordability is either possible or impossible for one reason. People's will.

Apart from Demsas' heartbreakingly clear case study, here's another piece whose lens steers us in a similar direction, but with an entirely more hopeful conclusion. It's from Noahpinon analyst Noah Smith.

The most encouraging grassroots political movement in the country in the last few years has been the YIMBY movement, which concentrates on a concrete goal (building more housing) instead of a political ideology. In recent years they’ve won a number of legislative victories, and the trend seems to be accelerating."

YIMBY has been at it for a decade, and Smith acknowledges it will take a lot more work for YIMBYism to begin to undo 50 years of NIMBY opposition to more housing supply. However, he says, "the trend line seems clear."

Flanking the public relations, intellectual/economic, and legislative efforts of the YIMBY movement, "butterfly effect" initiatives like the challenge, discovery, and recognition platform of Ivory Innovation's Ivory Prize for Innovation in Housing Affordability play an essential role to engage and activate people in pursuit of what's clearly possible.

This week, Ivory Innovations kicks off its call for entries for its sixth cycle in a nationwide search for applied brilliance and epic commitment to affordability solutions, often going on in undetected pockets and individual community- and neighborhood-level arenas.

From a statement:

The prize seeks to elevate ambitious, feasible and scalable solutions to the challenges facing the U.S. housing industry, with the goal of making housing both affordable and accessible for all Americans. Any organization or entity that is actively engaged in the pursuit of this mission, including entrepreneurs, startups, public entities and nonprofits, is encouraged to submit a nomination at ivoryinnovations.org. Third-party nominations are also welcome. Nominations will close on Dec. 31, 2023."

The Ivory Prize awards $300,000 in grants to winners in three areas of focus: Construction & Design, Policy & Regulatory Reform, and Finance. In addition to a monetary award, Ivory Prize winners also benefit from significant recognition, publicity and operational support from the Ivory Innovations team. Twenty-five Ivory Prize finalists also gain access to the Ivory Innovations network along with an array of support, including pro-bono consulting and sponsored summer interns from Ivory’s student associate cohort at the University of Utah.

As an honored participant in the Ivory Innovations advisory board since 2019, we've had a bird's eye view of the fearless and ferocious commitment Ivory Homes CEO Clark Ivory, managing director Abby Ivory, chief innovation and strategy officer Jenna Louie and their team. The feeling is palpable. Their work is clearly resolved and set on what's possible.

This is why we're so grateful and excited to partner with the Ivory Innovations team in presenting a new podcast series – House Party with Ivory Innovations – that will explore far and wide for solutions seekers in a quest falsely regarded as impossible: housing affordability.

Here's the link to episode 1

Each week, the podcast series, hosted by Ivory Innovation's Jenna Louie, will invite guests – inventors, building scientists, educators, policy-setters, investors, and technologists, etc. -- to share their experiences, learnings, and industry predictions as they lead organizations recognized for their positive impact on housing affordability

Season 1 features eight episodes, released each week starting today. The guests include:

  • Chris Herbert, Managing Director of the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
  • John Green, Blackstar Stability (Ivory Prize 2021)
  • Alex Lofton, Landed (Ivory Prize 2019)
  • Aishatu Yusuf, Impact Justice: The Homecoming Project (Ivory Prize 2021)
  • Kavya Shankar, Trust Neighborhoods (Ivory Prize 2021/22)
  • Sara Bronin, National Zoning Atlas (Ivory Prize 2022)
  • Tiffany Pang (Ivory Prize 2022)

Each organization plays an integral role in building novel solutions to address housing’s hardest problems – affordability, sustainability, resiliency, and regeneration of talent and human capital. Hear from John Green about helping families subject to predatory financial products, from Aishatu Yusuf on housing justice and the incarceration system, from Sara Bronin on bringing data transparency to the nation’s 19,000 zoning jurisdictions, and from Tiffany Pang on how technology solutions can help reduce friction for case workers serving the homeless community.