Affordable Housing Development Competition Overview
The Affordable Housing Development Competition encourages students who are interested in affordable housing to think carefully about the interconnections between housing, health care, and economic opportunity. By matching graduate students with experienced professionals, the competition provides the opportunity to combine classroom experience with real-world practice in affordable housing development.
The Process
Students and development sponsors come together for a series of informational sessions that describe the logistics of the competition and assist with team formation. After being paired with developers, the student teams have two months to produce an affordable housing plan. Each team of students, faculty, and sponsors is responsible for creating a working timeline. A commitment of about 15 hours per week is expected, and course credit may be granted, depending on school policies.
Prizes
To encourage the future design and conception of affordable housing, cash prizes will be awarded to proposals that best meet the judging criteria.
- First Place: $10,000
- Second Place: $7,000
- Third Place: $4,000
2026 Timeline
Review key dates and deadlines for the competition below.
| Date & Time | Events | Location |
|---|---|---|
| December 2025 | Invitations mailed to developers. | N/A |
| Mid-January 2026 | Applications due from development organizations. | N/A |
| Mon. Feb. 2 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. Tues. Feb. 3 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. | Student Intro Sessions Students learn about the competition and meet other students to form teams. Interested students must attend at least one of these sessions and complete the online student registration. Registering will help identify you and your skill set to help the student coordinating committee form teams. | All meetings will be held via Zoom. Interested participants will need to REGISTER prior to meeting. |
| Fri. Feb. 6 | Registration Deadline Final date to complete the online student registration. | Teams to be announced Mon. Feb 9 |
| Tues. Feb. 10 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. | Meet the Developer Night Meet with developers, learn about the projects. | Registered participants will receive Zoom link prior to the meeting. |
| Fri. Feb. 13 | Developer Preference Deadline Team leaders email student coordinators their top three project preferences. 2025 Coordinators: Freya Johnsen fjohnsen@umass.edu Lilly Saniel-Banrey: lsanielbanrey@gsd.harvard.edu | N/A |
| Mon. Feb. 16 | Competition Begins! Team, developer, and mentor pairings are emailed to all parties. Project managers schedule site visits and initial meetings with their developers and design and finance mentors. | Teams should contact developers and schedule site visits. |
| Tues. Feb. 24 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. | First Workshop Night | Registered participants will receive Zoom link prior to the meeting. |
| Tues. March 3 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. | Mentor Night Student teams meet with finance and design mentors. Developers are welcome. | Registered participants will receive Zoom link prior to the meeting. |
| Tues. March 10 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. | Second Workshop Night | Registered participants will receive Zoom link prior to the meeting. |
| Wed. April 1 10:00 a.m. | Submission Deadline Please submit the competition proposals, two-sentence project description for the awards ceremony program, and printing directions (letter or legal size and preferred binding placement) to the Dropbox set up by the student coordinators. Please direct questions to 2026 Student Coordinators. | N/A |
| TBA | Awards Ceremony Including presentation of final proposals. | All students are pre-registered for this event. |
