The Housing Innovation Lab (“iLab”) is a collaboration between the Mayor’s Office of Housing (MOH) and the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics (MONUM). The iLab draws on the expertise of both MONUM and MOH to explore new ideas and approaches in addressing our city’s housing needs. The iLab’s goal is to explore, experiment and evaluate approaches to ensure Boston remains a place all people at all income levels and life stages can call home. The iLab’s prior initiatives included leading competitions and RFPs on new homeownership funding models, an Additional Dwelling Unit pilot, new types of housing typologies (future decker), in addition to innovation contests and small housing unit prototype have been executed in partnership with city staff.

Founded in 2015, under former Mayor Martin J. Walsh, the iLab was initially funded by a grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies – one of 12 grants to 12 US cities to set up “i-teams” in their City to bring innovative thinking to challenging issues.