Oregon, we did it. You may have heard that we were a finalist for the 2020 Ivory Prize — “an annual award recognizing ambitious, feasible, and scalable solutions to housing affordability,” — but as of today, we’ve won the 2020 Ivory Prize. According to Ivory Innovations, “Two leading non-profits that brought Oregon’s policy to life are finalists for the 2020 Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability. 1000 Friends of Oregon and the Housing Alliance are being jointly recognized by Ivory Innovations after a national search for the most innovative solutions to housing affordability.”
Oregon Statewide Land Use Planning Goal 10: Housing — “An adequate housing supply is a fundamental building block of a healthy community."
In partnership with the Oregon Housing Alliance, we applied for the award after Oregon's passage of HB 2001, the nation’s most progressive middle housing legislation ever signed into law. HB 2001 was introduced in Oregon’s 2019 legislative session by Speaker Tina Kotek as a response to Oregon’s rising housing costs and our worsening housing crisis. The bill not only received overwhelming support from a wide variety of organizations, from affordable housing providers to environmental groups to homebuilders, but it passed in the legislature with bipartisan support.
The work for more middle housing in Oregon continues, as we advocate for more middle housing policies in Oregon’s communities. We’re also a participant in the Department of Land Conservation and Development’s rulemaking process to ensure local governments allow middle housing according to HB 2001, and we’re collaborating to build-in affordability provisions to local codes implementing HB 2001.