The City of Boston Child-Friendly Housing Design Challenge is an initiative led by the Housing Innovation Lab to provide developers, builders, and property owners with free access to high-quality, small-scale (up to 6 units), conceptual housing designs that are responsive to the needs of families with children under the age of 18 in Boston.

To build this design library, the city is calling for submissions from architects, builders, designers, contractors, and design-build partnerships practicing in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. All designs that meet minimum eligibility criteria will be included in the collection, and winning teams for each site will be awarded $10,000.

For the purposes of this design challenge, “child-friendly” housing is that which, at a minimum, has two or more bedrooms in each unit, laundry facilities in the building, easy access to parking/transit, and safe, visible spaces for children to play. Learn more about the challenge at boston.gov/cfh-design-challenge.

The City of Boston Mayor’s Office of Housing (MOH) is focused on systematic approaches to address Boston’s housing inequities so that all people have access to safe, healthy, and affordable housing. Our goal is to ensure every Bostonian has an affordable home that provides the stable foundation they need to thrive. To move towards that reality, MOH, along with the Neighborhood Housing Trust (NHT) and Community Preservation Act (CPA), are issuing this Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) to provide access to approximately $31 million of resources that will support qualified proposals from non-profit and for-profit developers of affordable rental and cooperative developments. MOH will make an additional $4 million of funding available to create and preserve supportive housing developments for unsheltered and/or aging populations. 

In total, MOH is making approximately $35 million dollars of CPA, NHT, HOME, CDBG, City Operating (Housing Boston 2030) and Inclusionary Development Policy (IDP) funds available to support the production and preservation of affordable housing.  

All applications are due on Friday, September 25, 2026 at 4:00 pm. No Late Proposals will be accepted.

AOP is available on a rolling basis after the completion of a Pilot Round that allows new development teams to apply to become an AOP Developer and to allow for rolling basis of applications indefinitely or until funds are depleted.