Enterprise Community Partners and Wells Fargo have opened the application process for the Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge, a nationwide search for the most innovative and scalable ideas to increase housing affordability solutions. The competition, which is expected to draw hundreds of applications from around the country, will award six grants of more than $2 million each, in addition to providing two years of technical assistance from Enterprise to help turn the grantees’ concepts into reality.
“Transformative change in communities happens when the best ideas are paired with the right mix of resources and technical know-how, and the Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge allows us to do that six times over,” said Melinda Pollack, Enterprise senior vice president of national initiatives. “This incredible commitment from Wells Fargo will elevate and scale promising new ideas that will create real change for the millions of families who lack access to quality affordable homes nationwide.”
Winning proposals will detail scalable solutions that specifically address one of the challenge’s three focus areas: • Housing Construction
• Housing Financing
• Resident Services and Support
Responses to the first-round request for proposals (RFPs) are due Feb. 19. Enterprise will facilitate a review process to select up to 40 finalists for the second-round RFP. Fifteen finalists will be invited to the program’s third and final round, including participating in a pitch competition. The final six grant recipients will be named this summer.
The Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge is part of Wells Fargo’s $1 billion commitment to support housing affordability solutions nationwide by 2025.
"Together with Enterprise Community Partners, we will engage with creative innovators who have know-how, technical skill, imagination, and with catalytic investment can transform housing affordability ideas into real action on the ground,” said Eileen Fitzgerald, head of housing affordability philanthropy with the Wells Fargo Foundation. “With the Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge, we are bringing forward our financial resources combined with our business expertise to inspire vitally needed scalable and effective housing affordability solutions.”
The Challenge is open to applicants in all 50 states, as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Proposals may cover single-family or multifamily housing, can assist homeowners or renters, and can focus on any sector of the community, including children, youth, families, and seniors.
For more information and to read the request for proposals, visit the Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge website.
