Greater Cincinnati groups launch Housing Innovation Lab

The Greater Cincinnati Foundation, University of Cincinnati Real Estate Center and LISC Greater Cincinnati are teaming up to test solutions to the region’s housing challenges, starting with whether a modular housing facility could lower construction costs.

The Housing Innovation Lab will bring together researchers, developers, nonprofit leaders, financial institutions and public-sector partners to identify promising approaches to housing affordability, test their effectiveness and determine whether they can work on a larger scale.

The initiative aims to address barriers to building, preserving and expanding affordable housing across the region.

“Housing challenges are complex, and no single program, organization, or source of capital is going to solve them. But complexity can’t become an excuse for standing still,” said Ron Stubblefield, GCF’s director of housing and place-based initiatives.

“If we want different results, we have to be willing to try different approaches, to test promising ideas, learn quickly from what works and what doesn’t, and bring the right people and the right capital together behind the ideas that prove themselves.”

Testing new approaches

One of the lab’s first priorities is to determine whether the region should develop a modular housing facility, where workers build homes in sections inside a factory before transporting and assembling them on-site. The study will examine production models, financing and partnerships needed to make the facility viable.

Joe Hansbauer, president and CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Cincinnati, helped lead the early development of the modular and manufactured housing proposal.

“Families across our region are being priced out of homeownership, and the cost of building a home is a big part of the reason,” Hansbauer said. “We owe it to them to ask hard questions about how homes get built. This study will tell us, based on evidence, whether regional modular production can lower costs and help more families own a home.”

The lab also will examine financing gaps that prevent housing projects from moving forward. Susan Thomas, senior vice president and head of community development at Fifth Third Bank and president of Fifth Third Community Development Corp., will lead the lab’s Capital Working Group. The group will explore ways to combine philanthropic, public and private funding to support housing construction and preservation.

UC will contribute research and evaluation expertise, including faculty from urban planning and other disciplines. LISC will bring experience implementing projects and working with neighborhoods, while GCF is contributing housing strategy, impact investing and its ability to bring partners together.

“This research-practice partnership provides a model for how the academic community can be a partner in facilitating innovation with a broad set of stakeholders, while developing a dynamic learning system,” said Gary Painter, chair of the Board of Executive Advisors in Real Estate and academic director of the UC Real Estate Center.

Other partners include Avivar Capital, CIG Communities, The Catalytic Fund, Cincinnati Development Fund, Fifth Third Bank, Habitat for Humanity of Greater Cincinnati, Kentucky Housing Corporation, Model Group, PNC Bank and Urban Sites.

Together, the organizations involved want to use the lab’s research to help regional leaders decide which housing strategies warrant further investment and broader implementation.

“The goal is not simply to study housing challenges. It’s to generate evidence, test solutions in practice and provide communities with the information they need to make smarter decisions and invest in approaches that have demonstrated results,” Painter said.