Your affordable housing project could be award-winning

by Blake Warenik, National Housing Conference and Center for Housing Policy

2011 Gold Medal Winner,
  the Bridge Homeless
Assistance Center, Dallas

If you've completed a great affordable housing project with excellent design, enter it into the running for the 2013 Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence. This prestigious award "celebrates urban places that are distinguished by quality design and their social and economic contributions to our nation’s cities. Winners offer creative place making solutions that transcend the boundaries between architecture, urban design and planning and showcase innovative thinking about American cities."

The committee has a very broad definition of what they're looking for. Last year, the Rudy Bruner Award honored projects as diverse as a homeless assistance center in Dallas, public parks in Brooklyn and Phoenix and a mixed-use, smart-growth redevelopment of a railyard in Santa Fe. Also, don't fret if your project is not located in a major city; according to the guidelines, "Urban environment is broadly defined to include cities, towns, villages, neighborhoods, counties and/or regions." One Gold Medal winner will receive $50,000 to use toward the project; four Silver Medal winners will receive $10,000 each.

Please take a moment to submit your great project that includes affordable housing. We would love to have an NHC member or partner recognized, and there can be no greater social or economic contribution in this climate than affordable housing.

The call for entries is open until December 10, 2012. Let us know if you apply! We'd love to highlight your project on the Open House Blog, too. Contact me at bwarenik (AT) nhc (DOT) org to tell us about your project or to discuss a guest blogging opportunity.