Tempe – October 12, 2026 -- Ivory Innovations will award the 2026 Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability to four winners across three categories at its annual summit on Oct. 14 at Arizona State University.
Winners span construction, finance and policy reform
The prize recognizes work in Construction & Design, Finance, and Policy & Regulatory Reform. This year's winners are TradesFutures, the City of Boston's Boston Acquisition Fund, and the City of Chattanooga's Affordable Housing PILOT. The City of New Rochelle's Downtown Development initiative is a co-winner.
Ivory Innovations describes the honorees as concrete starting points for a national conversation. Their approaches cover preparing more people for construction careers, financing housing acquisition, and using local policy to support affordability and development.
Eleven presenters from industry, academia and government are scheduled
Clark Ivory, CEO of Ivory Homes and co-founder of Ivory Innovations, is among the featured presenters. Chris Herbert, managing director of Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies and chairman of the Ivory Innovations Advisory Board, will also present.
Other speakers include:
- Laurie Goodman, founder of The Urban Institute's Housing Finance Policy Center
- Jonathan Lawless, head of homeownership at Bilt Rewards
- Dennis Steigerwalt, president of the Housing Innovation Alliance
- Eric Kronberg, principal at Kronberg Urbanists + Architects and co-founder of Inc Codes
Arizona officials on the program are State Senators Flavio Bravo and Shawnna Bolick, Arizona Housing Coalition Director Nicole Newhouse, and Anakaren Lemus, chief of government affairs for the Arizona Department of Housing. Alison Cook-Davis, research director at ASU's Morrison Institute for Public Policy, rounds out the list.
Summit targets cross-sector collaboration on existing solutions
Abby Ivory, co-founder and president of Ivory Innovations, said the priority is sharing existing solutions with the communities that need them most. The summit is designed to link policy, development, research and entrepreneurship, sectors that Ivory Innovations says often address housing challenges separately.
Three Hack-A-House student teams will present on a livestream
The three winning teams from Hack-A-House, an annual Ivory Innovations competition in which college students nationwide propose affordability solutions, will present during the summit. The presentations will be livestreamed and followed by voting for the competition's Grand Prize.
The event runs at Memorial Union on the Tempe campus of Arizona State University. It is presented in partnership with MOD X, the Housing Innovation Alliance, the Arizona Research Center for Housing and Economic Solutions, and ASU's Morrison Institute for Public Policy.