Greater Cincinnati Foundation (GCF), University of Cincinnati (UC) Real Estate Center and LISC Greater Cincinnati (LISC) will soon launch a new regional research and development initiative designed to identify, test and scale solutions to the region’s housing challenges. Dubbed the Housing Innovation Lab, the project is built around a simple idea: What if communities approached housing challenges the way leading companies approach innovation?
This partnership combines GCF’s housing strategy, impact investing, and convening capabilities, UC’s research and evaluation expertise, and LISC’s implementation expertise and neighborhood partnerships. Bringing together researchers, nonprofit leaders, developers, financial institutions, public-sector partners and more, the Housing Innovation Lab’s work will focus on identifying the most promising ideas for addressing housing affordability, then testing them for effectiveness and scalability. The findings will equip regional leaders with insight into which ideas warrant further investment and implementation.
Together, the organizations aim to address the systemic barriers that make it difficult to build, preserve, and expand 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, director of housing and place-based initiatives at GCF. “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.”
Among the Lab’s first objectives is to assess whether a regional modular housing production facility should be developed, and if so, what production model, financing structure, partnerships, and implementation conditions would be required to make it viable. The modular and manufactured housing workstream currently being considered was developed with early leadership from Joe Hansbauer, president and CEO of Habitat for Humanity.
“Families across our region are being priced out of homeownership, and the cost of building a home is a big part of the reason,” said Hansbauer. “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.”
Susan Thomas, senior vice president and head of community development at Fifth Third Bank and president of Fifth Third Community Development Corporation, will chair the Lab’s Capital Working Group. The group will identify financing gaps that prevent otherwise viable housing projects from moving forward and develop approaches to address them, including structures that combine philanthropic, public and private capital to support housing production and preservation.
The Lab will also draw on faculty expertise across UC, including urban planning and other disciplines.
“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, Ph.D., Board of Executive Advisors in Real Estate (BEARE) chair and academic director of the University of Cincinnati Real Estate Center. “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.”
In addition to GCF, UC, and LISC Greater Cincinnati, the Housing Innovation Lab will bring together a network of regional partners spanning housing development, community development, finance and the public sector. 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, these partners will bring development, housing production, public-sector, community development and financial expertise to the Lab’s work, helping move promising ideas from research and analysis toward implementation and regional scale.
Through this initiative, the partners aim to position Greater Cincinnati as a leader in developing practical, evidence-based solutions that strengthen the region’s housing ecosystem and expand opportunity for residents across the community.
About Greater Cincinnati Foundation
Greater Cincinnati Foundation is the region’s leading community foundation, serving an eight-county region in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Through trusted partnerships and thoughtful stewardship of community assets, GCF builds a more vibrant, opportunity-rich, and equitable region for everyone – now, and for generations to come.
About the University of Cincinnati Real Estate Center
The UC Real Estate Center at the Carl H. Lindner College of Business is the catalyst connecting the University of Cincinnati and the real estate industry. Through academic programs, industry outreach and research, the center cultivates the next generation of real estate leaders through strong connections to the industry and a growing local, national and international alumni network.
