Announcing the 2024 Housing Venture Lab Cohort
Today, Terner Labs announced the fifth cohort of entrepreneurs selected for the Housing Venture Lab, an accelerator providing wraparound support for bold new ideas to make housing more equitable, accessible, and sustainable.
Selected ventures will receive a $75,000 seed grant, six months of expert coaching and access to the Terner Labs and Center network, including a growing Housing Venture Lab alumni network. For the 2024 cohort, Terner Labs sought ventures whose work removes barriers to building faster, cheaper housing while keeping marginalized populations at the forefront, supporting low-income renters, breaking cycles of poverty and wealth inequality, and advancing sustainability.
The ventures selected for this year’s Housing Venture Lab are:
“The ventures in this year’s cohort bring a variety of innovative approaches to today’s housing crisis,” says Ben Metcalf, Chief Executive Officer at Terner Labs. “Some are addressing urgent housing needs by quickly building homes on underutilized land; others are helping community organizations take advantage of new funding sources. All six bring an equity lens to their work, with an understanding of housing as a pathway to health, dignity, and building opportunity. Together, these innovators have the potential to both improve lives in the short term and change the future of the housing market in the United States."
ABOUT THE HOUSING VENTURE LAB
Founded in 2019, the Housing Venture Lab is an accelerator providing wraparound support for entrepreneurs with new, bold ideas to make housing more equitable, accessible, and sustainable. The Housing Venture Lab is a program of Terner Labs, the sister 501(c)3 nonprofit of Terner Center for Housing Innovation at U.C. Berkeley.
The Housing Lab has previously worked with 22 nonprofit and for-profit ventures, nearly two-thirds of which have been led by people of color. Alumni have gone on to raise over $490 million and improve the lives of more than 163,000 people. Learn more about our past cohorts here.
The Housing Venture Lab is generously supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, The Hilton Foundation, The Ivory Foundation, The Howard and Irene Levine Family Foundation, The Making Waves Foundation, The Ballmer Group and several other philanthropic organizations and individuals.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE 2024 COHORT
Firm Foundation
Hayward, California
Founded 2017
Website
Firm Foundation Community Housing works to build permanent supportive housing on vacant church land, with the goal of ending involuntary homelessness. Their model supports faith communities in making the decision to build housing on their land and then helps them navigate the regulatory ambiguity around building accessible tiny homes. Firm Foundation creates temporary production facilities onsite, so homes can be built faster and more affordably - typically in 18-22 months, compared to the typical 4-7 years for other affordable housing projects. This means more and faster access to housing for people who need it. Firm Foundation's homes are fully equipped and built to create a communal, village-style environment, promoting dignity, stability, and safety for their residents. Currently, they're working to expand to additional cities throughout California.
FwdSlash
Tennent, New Jersey
Founded June 2022
Website
FwdSlash is pursuing a transformative vision that leverages the crucial role of housing in health outcomes. FwdSlash facilitates connections between housing developers, community-based social care providers, and Medicaid managed care organizations. By enabling Medicaid health insurers to directly prescribe housing to their members experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity, the company is improving lives and reducing healthcare costs. Their approach aims to capture billions in affordable housing investments from the $74 billion spent annually on healthcare costs for people experiencing housing insecurity. Ultimately, FWDSlash hopes to craft a financial infrastructure that braids housing, social care services, and healthcare together to improve health and social outcomes, generate health cost savings, and increase housing availability.
ROC USA
Concord, New Hampshire
Founded May 2008
Website
Since its founding in 2008, ROC (Resident Owned Communities) USA has enabled homeowners in manufactured home communities to collectively buy the land their homes sit on. An estimated 20 million people live in manufactured homes, which represent 1 out of 9 new home builds. Of the more than 43,000 manufactured home communities across the country (often called mobile home parks, though these homes usually aren’t truly mobile), only around 2% are owned by their residents. This leaves residents vulnerable to lot rental increases, closure, and poor management. ROC’s cooperative buying model gives residents a chance to compete against a rising trend of predatory buyers. A clear market leader, ROC is currently operating in rural New England, the Northwest, and the Midwest, and aims to expand geographically to reach a more diverse group of residents.
BuildCasa
San Francisco, California
Founded 2022
Website
BuildCasa is on a mission to build 100,000 homes in existing neighborhoods. The startup helps homeowners unlock value from unused land on their properties and expands the supply of affordable starter homes on the new infill sites. A new California law, SB 9, allows homeowners to split their lots, but many lack the resources to take advantage of this policy. BuildCasa manages the entire subdivision process, including financing, surveying, and permitting, allowing homeowners to monetize their extra lot space with no cost or work. Homeowners get hundreds of thousands of dollars of value without giving up their existing home or mortgage. Once the lot is split, the company partners with local builders to create new construction starter homes and duplexes in existing neighborhoods.
Appraisal Insights
New York, New York
Founded March 2023
Website
Appraisal Insights aims to fight racial bias in home appraisal, which results in lower sales prices or equity amounts for mortgage applications by Black and brown homeowners in particular. Appraisal Insights works to educate state and federal regulators, advocating for a new standard for appraisers, and builds tools for lending institutions and appraisal companies to mitigate biased error in appraisals. The organization is also creating pathways for recourse when appraisers consistently undervalue homes for Black & brown homeowners, so homeowners can get a second, fairer valuation. Earlier this year, Appraisal Insights secured contracts with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council to deliver anti-bias curriculum at a federal level.
LadderUp
Toledo, Ohio
Founded 2021
Website
LadderUp Housing is bridging the wealth gap by providing an alternative pathway to homeownership. Based in Ohio, the company takes advantage of the Midwest’s housing landscape (a high quantity of low-cost housing stock), offering a rent-to-own model to homeowners who otherwise might not be able to purchase a home. LadderUp purchases and renovates single-family homes in midsize cities, rents these homes to low to moderate income people, then connects tenants to financial resources (for example, credit score counseling), preparing them to eventually purchase the home themselves. When they’re ready, prospective homeowners can purchase their home for at or under the initial appraisal value. To date, LadderUp has purchased and rented 29 homes, with three renters currently in the process of purchasing their homes.
