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Entrepreneurs from the six ventures selected for the inaugural 2019-20 Housing Lab cohort in effort ... [+] to break through barriers to housing affordability and equity.

A funny-but-unfair potshot the American housing industry gets is this: Its a 200-year-old industry undeterred by progress. Thats the glib narrative, and its at least part-true. What the one-liner belies, however, is that invention and progress have sent shivers of light, excitement, and possibility through U.S. housing and constructions $3-trillion-a-year firmament, especially of late.

Three vaunted examples:

And these sweeping shifts dont even take into consideration an accelerating flow of materials science applications, the role of artificial intelligence in design and construction, the explosive power of building information modeling, a still-barely tapped digital thread linking a household to his, her, or their future home and community.

The trouble is this.

Who specifically does all of this real-world, real-time innovationoccurring at every turn in geographical nooks and crannies and cracks and crevices of residential real estate and constructionultimately impact? Factories, distribution centers, job sites, white board conference rooms, research and development labs, innovators among lenders, financiers, marketers, builders, planners, developers, architects, materials suppliers, etc.housing teems with change-agents, young, middle-aged, and older.

Innovation promises, but does it deliver on those promises? Whether an innovation bends the cost curve, improves productivity, or expands the credit box, reduces friction, adds inventory, lowers regulatory barriers, etc., they all beg the same questions. Are fewer people housing burdened? Are more properties safe from natural hazard harm or destruction? Do more homes operate at net carbon positive levels that will, possibly lower risk of climate collapse?

The answer is yes and no. Innovations tend to do one of the three big jobs they need to, but not the other two. As a result, housings familiar whack-a-mole phenomenon of solving for an issue and either worsening or ignoring two equally compelling challenges.

Certainly, the innovations mentioned above all claim beneficiaries and create new value. Still, can the effort and investment in housings most scientifically, strategically, and financially innovative work apply brilliance and ingenuity where housing needs it most of all? Solutions to crisis challenges in housing affordability, sustainability, and resiliency at a time needespecially among societys most vulnerable peopleis non-negotiable across all three spheres.

Carol Galante, the I. Donald Terner Professor in Affordable Housing and Urban Planning, and founder ... [+] and faculty director of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at Berkeley.

In both the private sector and among earnest and enlightened people working in the public sector, were seeing active efforts to stretch out of the past into the future, says former Obama Administration housing official Carol Galante, who is I. Donald Terner Professor in Affordable Housing and Urban Planning and founder-faculty director of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at University of California at Berkeley.

Were not going to get to the solutions we need unless we marry policy change with innovations in practice and innovations in the way we finance projects and community development, and in how we define ownership and stakeholder-ship, Galante says. Were seeing great strides of progress everywhere in how we build housing, how we get it approved, and how we get it financed, and we have to work to apply these innovative techniques to create results where housing can be a solution for where the crises hit the hardest.

Galantelike many of housings pantheon of experts and leadersnotes that a day almost never goes by that does not come with it revelation of some unprecedented height of unparalleled achievement, unrivaled capability, breakthrough processes, material, integration, designs, engineered impact on structure, systems, and livability. Game-changing uses of technology, data, machine learning, robotics, match-making, process engineering, etc. dazzle the mind in ways few could have imagined a decade ago.

But when it comes to keepersdisruptive innovations that gain sector-wide, transformative traction, at least near-universal adoption, and implementation in housingmany of even the most necessary and ingenious of todays initiatives fall short of the kind of impact housing needs most urgently right now.

Its always a challenge for policyparticularly local land-use policyto keep pace with building technologies advances, and, lately financial ones, Galante notes. If anything good can come out of the enormous distress the pandemic has created its what Id call an emerging coalition of the willing on the policy front that have both been exposed more profoundly to wealth and income disparities among people of color and societys most vulnerable populations, and experienced, first-hand, a sense of possibility around whats achievable.

Galante and her colleagues at Terner Centers Housing Lab accelerator program are accepting applications through April 7, 2021 for a second cohort of new ventures whose strategies, operational models, and impact would promote an equitable economic recovery from the current pandemic shock and economic disruption.

We are looking for innovators with creative solutions that are responsive to the unique circumstances of the current moment, while also being responsive to the housing market failures that existed long before COVID-19, a Housing Lab challenge reads.

For year two, the Housing Lab will support ventures accepted into its 2021 cohort with a $100,000 grant, a dedicated business coach, capital structure advice, and access to the Terner Centers ecosystem of builders, policy makers, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs. In 2020, six new venturesDigs, Dweller, ESuSu, Hurry Home, Padsplit, and PrefabADU were selected from nearly 140 applications from all fifty U.S. states. Within six months of graduation, two ventures completed their next funding rounds and one was acquired, despite graduating into the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participating entrepreneurs rated the Lab with a Net Promoter Score of 100. All six companies are still in operation and on a path towards scale.

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Obama-Era Official: Housing Crisis Impact Hinges On These 3 Must-Have Solutions - Forbes