Terner Housing Innovation Lab Launches Nationwide Search for Early-Stage Housing Affordability Innovators
Seeks Organizations With Products and Services That Address Housing Inequality
BERKELEY, Calif., Feb. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Terner Housing Innovation Labs announced today it is conducting a nationwide search for entrepreneurs it can team up with to bring to market innovative housing solutions that will help marginalized people in the U.S. and build an equitable recovery from COVID-19.
The Housing Lab accelerator will select up to four of the strongest business or nonprofit ventures from across the country that can benefit from $100,000 in seed money and a half year of intensive coaching from national leaders in housing innovation and entrepreneurship.
It will also provide technical support to navigate complex regulatory and policy requirements at all levels of government and will provide access to the Lab's wide network of builders, policymakers, community organizations, and potential follow-on funders.
"Now more than ever, we need public and private sector housing solutions that build a more equal and accessible housing market than existed pre-COVID 19," said Carol Galante, founder of the Housing Lab and Faculty Director of the UC Berkeley's Terner Center for Housing Innovation. "The Housing Lab is perfectly positioned to help emerging housing innovators get what's needed to further these solutions for the benefit of those disproportionately affected by our national housing crisis."
The Lab is casting a wide net as it searches for solutions that will address racial and economic inequities in housing. Applicants may include but are not limited to venture-backed companies, existing company spinoffs, housing developers, and nonprofits with innovative products or services. The strongest applicants will have a well thought out, tested business model as well as an existing, committed team. The Lab strongly encourages applications from organizations led by people of color, people from working-class backgrounds, women, LGBTQ people or other marginalized groups.
The Housing Lab is the only nationally-focused accelerator addressing solutions for housing affordability in the U.S. It has boosted half a dozen organizations across the country, helping ventures expand to new markets, navigate complex policy and regulatory hurdles, and evolve their business models for greater impact.
The 2019-20 cohort ranged from businesses with innovative financing and kits to build accessory dwelling units, to a financial product that enables access to homeownership of houses valued at $80,000 or less, and an online marketplace for shared housing affordable to low-wage workers. Click here for a full description of each company in the 2019-20 cohort.
Interested ventures can apply by visiting housinglab.co/apply-2021. The early application deadline is March 12 and the final deadline is April 7.
Submission of applications by the early deadline is encouraged, to help ensure the Housing Lab team has the most time to get to know the organization.
The Housing Lab, founded in 2019 as a part of UC Berkeley'sTerner Center for Housing Innovation, is now a program of Terner Housing Innovation Labs, a 501c3 nonprofit. Its mission is to identify and accelerate early-stage ventures with the potential to make housing more affordable and fair. It is funded in partnership with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Ballmer Group, the James Irvine Foundation, David and Irene Levine Foundation, and Ivory Foundation and other organizations committed to furthering housing innovations that increase access and affordability to underserved people.
SOURCE Terner Center for Housing Innovation
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