SALT LAKE CITY, UT, Oct. 24, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Applications for Ivory Innovations’ 2020 Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability will be accepted through December 15. Now in its second year, the Ivory Prize recognizes innovators striving to make housing more affordable in three distinct areas: construction and design, finance, and regulatory reform and public policy. Founded by Utah’s largest homebuilder, the Ivory Prize awards a total of $200,000 to winners that have developed ambitious, feasible, and scalable solutions to housing affordability. Many of the finalists from the 2019 competition will present their achievements at a November 15 event titled "Housing and Innovation: Lessons from the Ivory Prize" and hosted at Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. The event is open to the public.
“Housing availability and affordability is one of the defining issues of our time,” said Clark Ivory, head of the Clark and Christine Ivory Foundation and CEO of Ivory Homes, which has been Utah’s largest homebuilder for more than 30 years and recently celebrated building its 20,000th home .“The Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability rewards those who are thinking outside of the box about how to make housing more affordable and abundant. From innovative financing models, groundbreaking construction technology, and visionary policy and regulatory reform, our 2019 inaugural class showcased what’s possible in housing. I can’t wait to see how our 2020 winners will take solving the housing affordability puzzle to the next level.”
Four winners were recognized in 2019: The Alley Flat Initiative, Factory_OS, Landed, and Home Partners of America. In addition, the Prize recognizes both top-10 and top-25 finalists, many of which are profiled in a white paper on the takeaways from the Ivory Prize. With focus areas including ADU reform, co-living, modular housing, comprehensive local housing plans, and innovative financing models that open homeownership to more people, the 2019 Ivory finalists are truly on the cutting edge of housing innovation.
The 2019 Ivory Prize competition received 126 applications from 28 states and the District of Columbia. The goal for the 2020 competition is to receive over 200 applications from all corners of the United States. Finalists and winners will be announced in early 2020. Applications can be submitted by visiting the Ivory Innovations website: https://ivory-innovations.org/theivoryprize.
The finalists and winners for the Ivory Prize are determined by Ivory Innovations’ Advisory Board. These include Clark Ivory; Kent Colton, Colton Housing Group; Carol Galante of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California at Berkeley; Chris Herbert at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies; the Urban Institute’s Laurie Goodman; Natalie Gochnour from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute; John McManus, VP-Editorial Director for Residential at Hanley Wood; and Ryan Smith, Director and Professor of the Washington State University School of Design and Construction.
Ivory Innovations is an applied academic institution at the University of Utah's David Eccles School of Business dedicated to catalyzing high impact innovations in housing affordability. Ivory Innovations seeks to promote the most compelling ideas in housing affordability by working across sectors, providing monetary awards for groundbreaking innovations and leveraging its network and resources.