Hiring Housing Lab Graduate Student Fellows
Winter/Spring 2024
Help uncover and elevate the most promising early-stage models to advance housing affordability in the United States.
Overview
The Terner Housing Innovation Labs seeks graduate student fellows to aid in recruiting and selecting the 2024 Housing Lab cohort. This cohort of for-profit and non-profit ventures provide solutions to advance housing affordability, equity, and sustainability.
About the Housing Lab
The Housing Lab identifies and accelerates creative models to lower housing costs with a focus on addressing systemic racial and economic inequity. Members of the cohort receive a $75,000 grant, 6 months of advising to navigate the policy environment, and access to the Lab’s national network of policymakers, developers, and investors. It is the only accelerator program in the United States dedicated to advancing early-stage innovations to promote housing affordability.
The Housing Lab started in 2019 and is in the process of completing its fourth annual cohort program, (you can read more about their pivotal work here.) The sixteen alumni from the first three cohorts (2020, 2021, and 2023) have gone on to improve housing and wealth outcomes for 50,000 people, raise nearly $400 million to expand their work, and secure significant partnerships with the state and federal government.
Details
We expect each fellow to become an expert in one or more verticals within housing innovation, such as real estate development, construction and design, home finance, sustainability, or technology. Fellows will research the national landscape, conduct first-round evaluations, contact companies, and lead company interviews within their vertical. Verticals will be assigned based on professional background and interest. Fellows may also have the opportunity to develop public-facing blogs and briefs on topic areas related to housing innovation, affordability, and equity.
Fellows must commit an average of 7-10 hours per week from mid-January until the end of May, 2024. Actual workload will vary with some lighter and some heavier weeks based on the Housing Lab application cycle. For interested fellows, there may be an opportunity to continue full or part-time work during the summer. It is desired (but not mandatory) that applicants have some prior exposure to innovative approaches to housing finance, development, or technology and/or experience in evaluating for-profit or nonprofit start-up models in other industries. Strong written and oral communication is required. Fellows will be paid $36/hour.
About Terner Housing Innovation Labs
Terner Housing Innovation Labs (Terner Labs) is a nonprofit organization that formulates and advances bold strategies to house families from all walks of life in vibrant, sustainable, and affordable homes and communities. As a sister organization of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley, we transform innovative research and policy expertise into actionable tools, programs, and partnerships with the public and private sectors. We currently operate two programs: The Housing Lab and a Housing Affordability Data Lab.
How to Apply
Please submit your resume and a brief summary of why you are interested here by Friday, November 3, 2023. Past fellows have included students from the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design, Haas School of Business, and Goldman School for Public Policy. We are excited about and greatly encourage applicants from other graduate programs as well.
